I am currently going through a period of change in my working life and it is making me take stock of what I am good at and what I enjoy.  One of the things I enjoy but have never taken very seriously is writing especially since I had two lack-lustre results in creative writing courses as part of my Literature degree.  In fact, doing those course made me think:

• I am not good enough to be a writer
• The kind of writing I really like to do is screenplays and that is not really very fulfilling if the scripts never develop into anything.
• I don’t want to be bad at it.

However, since a bit of time has passed and I am now a mum, I have been wanting to try to write again and specifically write for children. This was a genre which we were not permitted to write as part of either course so the optimist inside me tells me that there is still a chance that I could do it.  Also, upon further reflection, the reasons stated above are really superseded by the crux of the problem with me and writing for real:

• Being a writer takes work. It means writing every day. It means writing even when you don’t feel like writing.

This is what has held me back from really giving it a go.  This knowledge that it takes a lot of perspiration along with a smidge of that inspiration means I can’t hide behind fear of failure.  If I haven’t really tried then how do I expect to succeed.

In truth, I feel like there have been a lot of things in my life that I have wanted but never done because it seemed too unlikely to happen. I have not been one to take risks, shoot for the stars or even try my hardest. This makes me a little sad although I am lucky that I have a lot in life to show regardless.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I am going to try to write a story that I have flitting around my head. I can write it for Evelina and as such, there is no pressure for it to be anything other than a bedtime story.  As a way of getting back into writing words on a regular basis, I am going to attempt September’s NaBloPoMo (blogging every day for a month) across three blogs: here at all five horizons, over at Mama Kate and at sew make believe too which I am excited about since I have been writing less and less for that blog of late and I miss it.  At the same time, I will hopefully be adding to the paltry 254 words which I have put down so far. I have even added a nifty progress bar to the sidebar to show you all how I am getting on.