Oh, the horror.

This has happened before, but it's REALLY happened this time. I was browsing the Waterstone's website yesterday evening, and came across a book that had me interested and worried at the same time. Interested, because it looked like a damn good story - about faeries, and what they're really like; worried, because it's almost exactly the same story as mine, only much, MUCH better! It looks scary and mega-imaginative, original and compelling. Mine looks very pale compared to this book. And then I start to think that even if I could make mine much grittier (I'm sure I could) and frightening, would it look like I'd just copied my story from the one that's already out? Probably. This is the thing about writing - it takes such a bloody long time! Fine, you come up with an idea; but even for an experienced writer it takes a good year to have a finished manuscript ready. In that year many more writers seem to have exactly the same idea as you and you spot books almost identical to yours popping up all over the place. It's very disheartening.

So, I've got the morning off today, and a whole Day Off on Saturday :) I'm going to have a really good think. I'm going to do some short story exercises and see if I can dig about in my mind and find out what it actually is that I really do want to write. I'll also do some exercises around the characters that I'm already writing about, and see if I can find ways to make them more readable - I think I'm afraid to write characters that people won't like. That's stupid, because every book has to have baddies. And even some of the goodies need to have annoying habits, strange tics and ugly warts, and so on. Noomski said that I shouldn't give up on my book - he's read it and he was surprised by how good it was. He's a bit biased, but he's also honest, and he would tell me if he thought it was rubbish. He tells me I'm rubbish and ugly, fat and annoying most of the time anyway :D

So, hmmm, some free writing this morning I think. After a bath :)

This is my bridal wreath, by the way :) It's in one of the borders in my garden. It's looking splendid right now, all foamy and bright. It only flowers for about a fortnight though, and then it looks quite drab, lol. But I think it's worth the wait for those two weeks of loveliness. I took this photo on my phone - amazing!