Another New Kid
Hello everyone! I am delighted to be a part of this group of wonderful New Kids. Special thanks to Rebecca Lynn, who inexplicably said yes when I responded to her call for new bloggers.
I’ll start with a bit of introduction. I’m a married hockey mom, not a kid by any stretch of the imagination. I was born and raised in northern Ohio, and majored in English lit in college. I do have a day job, which you will probably hear me complain about at some point, and a number of volunteer roles. Other than those basic facts, these things are true about me: I am a passionate reader, mostly of historical romance, but I love a good mystery too. I am obsessed with Ancestry.com. I like to cook, I love to eat, and I am utterly devoted to cheese. I am a bit lazy. I would rather read than socialize, most of the time, and this has been true since I was a kid. Somewhere in my mother’s house there is a picture of me, circa age 9, sitting on the floor of the coat closet at church, reading Black Beauty.
The other thing that is true about me is that I am very new to the world of writing. Until a few years ago it had never occurred to me to write a book at all. At some point, though, an idea lodged itself in my head and insisted on being written. I played with it for a couple of years, not really trusting that I was the best one to tell the story, but it was persistent.
In 2010, I decided to try NaNoWriMo, and I restarted my tale, a Victorian era romance, from scratch. I did succeed in reaching 50,000 words, but the result was-ahem-such crap that it was hard to know where to go from there. Nevertheless, I did some polishing and entered my first five pages in The Great Beginnings contest sponsored by the Utah chapter of RWA. I didn’t come even close to finaling (which is good, as I have since learned it's not a good idea to enter a contest until your MS is finished), but I did learn a few valuable lessons from the experience:
1) It is not as painful as I expected to let someone else read my writing;
2) I discovered I did not, in fact, suck; and
3) I realized that I had a lot to learn about writing fiction.
As a result, I have spent most of the last year taking writing workshops, doing research about my time period, and trying to figure out how to balance all the aspects of my busy life so that I have time to write. Of all of these, the last is the hardest.
At this point, I am still working on that first manuscript, and have been dabbling with a second. A third waits in the wings, a complete departure from the other two, and directly related to my obsession with Ancestry.com. I would dearly love to get the first MS completed in 2012, which does not seem an unrealistic goal at the beginning of January. Maybe now that someone is looking over my shoulder I will get it done. Thanks for joining me on the journey.
-Marin McGinnis
6 comments:
Woo hoo! Go Marin! And I applaud your Ancestry.com issues, as I share them. Hmm... is this genetic?
Thanks, Mindy! Yes, it probably is. :)
Hi Marin,
Yay for another newcomer to the blog. I admire your devotion to learning your craft. And although it doesn't matter in the long run, Victorian era seems to be gaining in popularity right now.
I'll be interested to hear about that other one you have rearing to get out.LOL
The learning curve is so huge when you first start. As a member of the Utah chapter, thanks for entering our contest and finding it a learning experience. I look back at some of my early writing and just cringe with how much I did not know then. I love that we are all following a dream that is different and yet so similar too. Good luck!
@Barbara - thanks! Funny, I never thought of writing something popular (although I know I should have!). I'm glad I fell into it by accident. :) My third MS is set in 15th century England, and is based on a kidnapping perpetrated by one of my less than noble ancestors. I haven't read much medieval romance, so I have a lot to learn before that one sees the light of day.
@Clancy - thanks for the welcome! The early stuff is definitely cringeworthy, but I'm working on it. :)
Hi Marin - Welcome to New Kids...
When I started writing I suffered from B&S disease (Bright and Shiny...)
I had three maybe four ms in partial completion stage.
Now, I still have a few, but mostly because I wrote the first chapter for a contest... Trying to break this habit is a pain.
See you around.
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