I recently received a draft Author copy of ‘Colour Me Coral’, my most recent book and I must tell you, it’s an amazing feeling to hold a hardcopy of your book in your hands.
When I started classicallyivy.com in 2015, I had no game plan. I had ideas and feelings that I wanted to express, and I went ahead to share them online.
I think one has to have a certain level of boldness to write and share that work with the world. Other things are important-creativity, determination and deriving pleasure from writing, but boldness is definitely important.
My first 2 books (a collection of poetry, and a collection of short stories) were fun to write and compile. Going through them now is nostalgic for me. I didn’t pay attention to the dimensions when I published the first book so the size turned out larger than expected. I recently republished it with smaller dimensions, but I am still very fond of the first edition.
For the short stories in particular, knowing what I know now about writing, I would have done some things differently, but I wouldn’t change the book because it has led me to where I am now as a Writer.
Writing my third book, ‘Dirt In The Dust’ pushed me creatively and mentally. I almost gave up at a point but I had a strong conviction about the story which spurred me on, and I am so happy that I persevered.
For ‘Colour Me Coral’, I didn’t feel as much pressure when writing it because wrote it little by little, on and off for about four years. I tried a method of writing chapters as the ideas formed in my mind rather than writing them sequentially and it really helped. I did push myself to complete it this year because I needed something positive to happen in 2020. The book has a completely different ending from what I originally had in mind, and I am happy with how it has turned out.
I feel it’s good to reflect on the positives because often we are hard on ourselves. This has been a dark year for me but writing in general, and completing my fourth book in particular have brought me inexplicable joy.
You can get more details about my books here.
I hope the week has been good for you so far.
Ivie ×
ClassicallyIvy 