I’ve been writing on and off for years.

I wrote 1/2 a novel in 2002 but ran out of steam and actually, I had trouble writing dialogue.

The idea for that one is still parked and I’ll probably have another crack at it one of these days, sooner rather than later I think. I was a little disturbed to rent a DVD with a similar plot line (although different setting) which tells me I’m on the right track anyway.

So, back to the story

I’ve been telling my daughter bedtime stories since she was in a grown up bed at 2 years old – by chance, I hit on a formula first time that really worked for her and I made up a ton of stories around a theme (most of which I’ve totally forgotten but they can be recreated easily enough). They even work for my 9 year old step daughter, although her imagination runs wild and she wants the story to go places I don’t think of (magical horses, mostly). Its good material though 😉

My father used to do the same for me and my sisters when we were little (although I only recall him doing that when we were on holiday, possibly because he was working late and didnt get back for our bedtime when we were small) but he did them in nightly chapter format with a classic cliffhanger so we always wanted more.

Well, mine aren’t like that – they’re one-a-night, simple five or so minute stories that would be good for children to have read to them until they were about seven ish, when they could read them themselves.

I finally wrote one of these stories down and it was much harder and more time consuming than I thought – its hard to know where to draw the line between simplicity and colourful description and scene setting dialogue. Do kids even care about that stuff? So its done, second draft (Jay did the first review and I’ve made those changes) and now I need to write a couple more so I can have enough material to approach an agent to see what they think.

I know getting a book published is a matter of persistence and not worrying about rejection, but even so, this is the daunting part.