I’ve written a first draft of a book. When it’s finished, I want to get it published. There’s still a lot of writing work to go. Why would I want to write a blog as well?

I have two answers for you, one straightforward and one, not so much.

Answer number one. I love writing.

I always have. As a child, I wrote little stories and pictures, on microscopic bits of paper and stapled them together. As a high school student, I lived for the English assignments that involved writing a story. I wrote a novella that was a sequel to “Return of the Jedi”. (Earth girl meets Luke, becomes a Jedi, falls in love with him – makes total sense, right?) I dreamed out scenes from my own original sci-fi fantasy before falling asleep at night and wrote them down during classes when I could get away with it, along with the illustrations. 

Then music took centre stage. Yes, I loved writing and drawing but I loved music too. I played violin and chose to go to the Con and pursue a career in music. As you can imagine, there is a big time commitment involved in this. You probably don’t have to imagine anything. To be the best you can be at ANYTHING requires time. I still wrote for fun occasionally – some children’s picture books, some plays for church, some adult novel ideas. I worked on my sci-fi but decreasingly. I got to a point when I thought, “Why am I writing this? I’m not a scientist. Every idea I’ve ever come up with, has been done already.”

Fast-forward to now and I have had a successful career as a full-time violinist with a professional orchestra. I have a wonderfully supportive husband and three gorgeous kids. What has changed? What has made me want to pursue writing again and why sci-fi?

I have resigned from my orchestral job. I found I didn’t have enough time with my family. I had an injury, devasting and novel-worthy. I overcame the problems but it changed the amount of time I needed to put into playing violin. Illustrating and writing rose in their appeal and I’ve done a few courses. I did a picture book writing course with the Australian Writers’ Centre. (I highly recommend it.) Then I had a light-bulb moment when I read Suzanne Collins’ notes at the end of Hunger Games. Sci-fi, doesn’t have to be a science. I feel crazy to confess that I didn’t realise this, since I am an avid fan of sci-fi. It’s about stories. It’s about issues. It’s about characters. Science is the magic of sci-fi. As long as I don’t make out that I’m some sort of expert in anything science and it makes vague sense, I’ll be fine. Besides, scientists will love reading it and poking holes in it. It’s my story, my characters that matter. I was driven to look at my story from high-school. Writing as a forty-something-year-old, is very different from writing as a fifteen-year-old so a lot of changes have been made. It’s all very exciting. It’s called “the Abandoned Apprentice’ and I’m looking forward to telling you about it.

That’s the reason I’m writing again. I love doing it. And I love writing this blog, just for the fun of writing.

But…

Reason number two for writing a blog. To get my book published.

The publishing part is complicated to say the least. These days, you don’t just wave a beautifully crafted manuscript, free from errors, under an eager publisher’s nose. (Because it used to happen that way, didn’t it?) No, you need an author platform. A what? A platform, like a thing you stand on to make a noise and help the noise go further and people see you more easily? Yes. One of those things. One of those things that I just got off from in my orchestra job. Apparently, you need a following. Publishers, once they’ve decided they like your manuscript, will check out if you have a media presence, how many followers you have. How many people subscribe to your emails. My heart sinks just writing the words. Self-promotion. Yay. So far, it’s my friends and family who are following me on Facebook. On my newly created twitter account, I have two followers. Understandable, since I haven’t worked out how to do anything on Twitter except watch Chris Hemsworth dance and waste time watching kittens boxing dogs.

When I googled articles on “building an author platform,” the first thing I discovered was that I need to be able to explain why I am the best person to write my book. I thought hard and long about this. I am not an expert in science, space travel, genetics, tech or abandonment. I’m just an expert in the world I’ve built and the characters I’ve created. And my characters are excellent. (Stops self writing “I think”.) One of my writing classmates described Marli as a “spunky ninja-monkey”. Thanks Emma! My love triangle has a teamYar and a teamThrist. I’m an expert in feelings, in being a human being, in the way that I have chosen to be one and in imagining other ways of doing it. In other words, I am an expert in Being Me.

So my blogs will follow a similar thread. The steps I’m taking to get my book published, some basic things about writing that I have learnt, some written language issues, some excerpts from my book. Please, if you are following, keep doing so. Please subscribe to the mailing list, I won’t be irritating, or if I am you can always send them to Junk. If you know someone who would interested in hearing about my book or my journey to publishing, send them a link to my blog or Facebook page. Or Twitter. Once I tear my eyes from the wiggling hips, and work out how to do something self-promotional. Sigh. Those kittens. So cute.