I wanted to write many years before I became good at it. I practiced writing in the same way that a pianist practices scales or a tennis player practices serves. I worked on sentences, then paragraphs, then scenes, over and over, until I got them right. If you want to become a writer, you may find the same is true for you. There is a long apprenticeship before you can write a full-length novel—and ages before you can write a good one. However, you can develop traits in yourself that will make it more likely you will succeed.
I am not saying you can’t be an excellent writer without developing these characteristics—authors’ personalities are replete with bizarre idiosyncrasies, social deviance, not to mention serious drug and alcohol abuse that sometimes obscure the work, itself. Admittedly success for any writer is rare, but here are a few ideas that might those of you who are writing.
In my novel, Age of Consent, a newly teenaged girl is seduced by a man in his twenties through a process known as “grooming.” The idea of grooming is to create an emotional bond with a child that can then be used to foster a sexual relationship. I’ve experienced this process myself, back in the late 70’s when I was fourteen-years old. My husband, who was aged eleven when his abuser used him for sex, was also extensively “groomed.” Read more…
