The musings of an unpublished novelist

Pebble hearts at Aphrodite's Rock, Petra Tou Romiou, Cyprus

I've been reading a lot about getting published and one thing everybody says is that you must have a blog.  So, here I am, blogging away...whether anyone will read this is unknown at the time of writing, but I'm going to do it anyway.

In my other life as a photographer, I have a blog on Wordpress - I'm not very good at posting new blogs on that.  What with my Facebook Page, my Twitter account, my photography website etc, there's a limit to how much time I've got - especially as I'm meant to be editing my novel.

I hope to be better at this one.

So - Welcome to my new blog - just to give you a little information about me and my novel.

My name is Sarah Knights - I've added the Catherine as it's my middle name - dur - but also as it distinguishes me from my other persona - Sarah Knights Photography.  This is the new me, the writer me.  I like this new me - it's the me I've wanted to be since I was young but never achieved.  So Sarah Catherine Knights is my Author name.  I'm just coming to the end of an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and it's because of this that I've written my first novel, Aphrodite's Child.  On September 30th, we hand in the final big piece of writing - 40,000 words.

To be honest, I'm happy just to have done the course - as long as I pass, I don't mind what mark I get.  I've got merits for everything so far, so I should be OK.  Anybody who says you can't learn to write, is wrong.  I was a bit sceptical before I started - I thought I could write well.  But the thing is, I didn't know anything about constructing a novel, how to write dialogue, how to describe people etc and that's what you learn on a course like that.  I would recommend it to anyone wanting to write.

I was nervous about people reading what I'd written - I'd never shown anyone my poor attempts at creative writing in the past so having to sit there while people discussed my work was torture at first -but it soon changed.  I got so much from the discussions, I began to look forward to them.  It was sometimes hard when they criticised a piece I thought was good or said something rude about one of my characters, but I had to develop a thicker skin and understand that you can't please everyone all the time.

So - what's the novel about?  It's set in Cyprus on a military camp and follows the life of Emily Blackwell.  She has to go and live there for three years as her husband, Luke, is posted there as an RAF Officer.

This also happened to me - I went to Cyprus in the nineties with my husband and three children.  I kept thinking that there was a story to be told and when we got back to the UK, I started writing, but only got a few chapters written.  Then - life got in the way and it was left mouldering in a drawer.

When I got onto the course at Bath Spa, I remembered those chapters and dragged them out.  They've now turned into 130,000 words and I've completed the first draft.  Those first few chapters have changed beyond recognition and the whole concept developed while I was writing.  I've always thought that when people say their characters take over the plot, they must be making it up - but it happened to me.  The plot kept changing and surprising me.  It started off all those years ago based on me - because that was the easiest thing to do, but I was taught to distance myself from Emily and now it's not about me at all.

Obviously, I've borrowed things from my own experience there, but the story is about someone searching for herself and encountering triumphs and tragedies - my life there was a lot less interesting!

I think I'll leave this first blog there, otherwise I won't have anything to say in the next...

If you've enjoyed my musings, please leave a comment - a nice one, hopefully.

See you next time.