It happened. I am experiencing a moment I have been yearning for while at the same time feeling terribly scared of it: The witching novel is being read.
Or, at least the beginning. I rewrote the first third a third time, and have now handed out a part of that to some of my friends. I’m so nervous, I have a little stomach ache.
Writing is a quiet and introverted activity, but I have to admit that I write to be read. Maybe my blog gave this away. I have spent my youth at the theater, I am also a musician, and I tell my stories for them to find an audience. So, I yearn for being heard, seen, and read.
But once it happens, all my excitement threatens to turn into crippling anxiety. I guess I would not be writing if on the inside I made sense, right?
This marks an important step for me. The novel has been in planning, research, and writing for the past 5 years, and I feel as if I finally found the voice. I found the right shape to write it all down and finish it, and I feel confident enough to let the people closest to me judge the state of it.
This is the bittersweet reality of writing for me. I want to be seen, and I’m so scared of being seen. It’s a bit like flirting. No wonder I eventually decided to write in raw and honest first person to have it all hurt a little more. For me and the reader.
Yes, I recently decided to rewrite the first 30 000 words from third into first person, and suddenly, the voice is right. “You have just authentically become me” my witch giggles over my shoulder. “Isn’t that what you summoned me for during the plague?”
I guess it is.
Mistress witch writes 