Writing Ray - The awkward questions from relatives

Afternoon m'lovelies, I wasn't too sure what post I wanted to do today since I need to do a July Reading round-off post but I also wanted to share the rather awksies situation I found myself in yesterday while on a coach trip to Llandudno with my mother and Gran.

I was a last-minute replacement for my sister who injured herself at work the other week (how she still functions like a human I do not know - I'm sure she ought to be a cyborg by now) to help my mum push my Gran round Llandudno. Since I'm now footloose and fancy-free after finishing work I was like "sure, why not?" I haven't been to the Welsh seaside in forevs and if it was nice and sunny then it would be lovely albeit kinda sweaty if I was pushing the wheelchair.

Anyway this relates to my writing because rather than taking a book to read on the coach journey there and back I decided to take my notebooks for my current WIP which I've got back into writing recently. So there I am on the coach sat by the window angling my notebook away from my mother so she can't read what I'm working on when my grandmother pipes up asking me what I'm doing.

How do you go about explaining your Fantasy novel to your 74 yr old Grandma in a way that won't sound mental? How do you explain just the fact that you are writing down the ideas that dribble out of your head? I made some very vague references to it being a story similar to what I like to read and didn't say much else.

Then she asks the most irritating question that I'm sure most non-published writers get asked - "Are you going to get it published?" As if it's just a case of taking the handful of pages that fell out of your printer into a publisher, plonking it down onto a desk as is and being given a pretty, bound book straight back. I had to try and explain that not only is my book not finished, it is also going to require a fuck-ton of editing undoubtedly and then that's not even getting near to the mainstream route of queries, agents and publishers - if I get there at all.

I also found it bizarre how my family seem to have got this idea that I've been writing stories solidly since I was a child. Yes when I was younger I probably did (I can't honestly say I remember) but I have never finished a story in my teens/adult life so far. What do they think I've been doing for all this time? It was just so odd to hear my Gran talking about my "stories" as if I've done loads and they're just lying about my house waiting to be published. Dude I wish that was the case!

Another strangely awkward relative situation recently is that my mother is completely fine with the idea of my writing. To the point that she is more than happy for me to be doing a Creative Writing module as part of my Open University degree. I find this so unexpected and bewildering you wouldn't believe - I expected disapproval and hints to do something more worthwhile not... whatever it is that my mother thinks about it all.

So yea that was yesterday. In terms of actual writing it was a pretty good day - I got three pages hand-written for what is currently going to be my first chapter which has kinda ended up as 6 pages. Now I gotta type all that up into Scrivener and see what the finished first draft version will be. If you're really lucky maybe I shall post that and the prologue up onto my Wattpad.

If you care to have a read of a little snippet I put up last week which is related to my WIP but not actually part of the novel then take a mosey over here. Any thoughts or comments on that will be muchly appreciated.

Right I've spent too long writing this - getting distracted by other interwebby stuff. I may do another post soon on some of the music that has been part of my writing process more recently.

Toodles
Ray x