My New Life

There are so many jobs to do around the house but still I sit here on the laptop willing something to burst forth. My 2 year old is happily watching Special Agent Oso. Maybe she watches too much TV but my reasoning is that she will be in school before she knows it and there will be no TV allowed from Monday to Friday after homework. Although, that is what I tell myself and this may not come to pass. There probably will be telly during the week but hopefully after homework! When I was pregnant I had so many idealised notions of parenthood. My children would not watch telly or eat sweets. I was SO naïve!

Five days ago I finished the first draft of my novel. I’m not exactly happy with it. It needs a lot of work and there are things I want to add in. I know I rushed to finish it but I have the time now to edit it and I plan to do my best.

Writing is something I always wanted to do. I remember writing a story in primary school about blackboards that came to life after all the kids went home. They ruled the school and snubbed the whiteboards who were only starting to come into my school in the mid 1980’s. Back then I thought I would grow up to write children’s stories. I thought that until my 6^th year in secondary school. I wrote an essay then that really impressed the English teacher. She actually said I could be the next Stephen King. He was my favourite author at the time. Still is. Now I know that the important word in that sentence was “could”. I could be the next Stephen King but that was not going to just fall into my lap! I needed to work for it. That was 13 years ago and I’m only now starting to work towards it. Up until now I have done various college courses, random jobs and become a mother. I even have a MA. But what I don’t have is a published book, children’s or otherwise. So back in October when a friend mentioned the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair Competition I thought “This is it”. Call it a sign or a kick up the bum or maybe it just came around at the right time in my life, whatever it was it woke me up from a life of just living day to day and not really knowing what to do with myself. So here it is: My New Life.