Sarah Parker, Apprentice Wordsmith

How did I get into writing?

I wrote my first novel in high school, in Year Ten, called 'Keri, Kit and Laura', a science fiction story about a post nuclear dome city. My best friend and I wrote it together; she had the ideas and I had the writing. I still have the manuscript, written on an old 'portable' typewriter which printed in cursive font. I wrote a fantasy novel or two as well, one by hand, the other on an old massive typewriter (not portable at all!). I wrote poetry as well during high school, and have kept most of it too. I went to university, and did every creative writing course I could find, but since there were only two, it wasn't that exciting. I stopped writing after uni. I got very busy with work and then family and I'm now the proud Mum of 2 gorgeous boys.

With my first child being tiny, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I'd been making some subtle gestures about starting to write again, and with the sudden appearance of a baby who slept twice a day for three hours each time, I had a lot of time on my hands. I decided to tackle Nanowrimo properly that year, and wrote up a novel plan for a text about being a Poly Pagan Parent, with chapter breaks and everything. That was 2006, and I completed Nanowrimo on day 21, but kept going to tally up 70K in one month. My hands hurt, my wrists hurt, I was amazed and exhilarated. So, of course, I didn't stop.

My biggest hurdle to writing was a deep sense of shame I picked up somewhere. I have been working my way through the various issues as I go along, so if you read my personal blog, expect to see all sorts of stuff there. As creators and writers, we have so much going on in our heads, it can be difficult to find the compass and remember the way home. I hope that by being public with my issues and fears and the ways I deal with them, maybe someone else can see something they relate to, or find a different way of handling the same thing.

Writing can be a very lonely occupation. I'm so pleased to have found and been a part of the women who make up the Egoboo group. I've been very lucky to have a very supportive partner, and very supportive friends who love to read my writing, even as I cringe. It's thanks to the oceans of support and love I have been given that I feel confident in my writing once again. I'm picking up things I had lost or forgotten, and I'm feeling inspired and grateful to all of my friends and family.

I'd like to welcome our readers to the Egoboo corner of the web, and invite them to participate. Please, feel free to email us, leave questions, let us know your thoughts about anything we've said. We are hoping that we can show people what we're doing, so that other interested parties don't have to reinvent the wheel. Also, a HUGE thank you to the Writers On The Rise group (ROR) who started in 2001, and are the template for what we do. They have been awesome in answering our emails, and being supportive and offering us any sort of help they could.

So what am I hoping for in future? To finish this book to the best it can be. And learn so much while doing it that the next one takes much less work! One thing I love about this is that there is always something new to learn, something new to focus on. I get bored in repetitive jobs, and love using every skill I can when I can. I also love organization and planning, which are important skills for when the manuscript is actually ready to send out. I'm hoping to write across multiple genres, and I expect I will never run out of new things to learn. And this excites me like nothing I've ever known before.


--
Sarah