Life update thingy: my writing isn't going great, but we have snow so never mind

Hey guys... so since I have nothing better to do (wow I sound so passionate about blogging don't I) I've decided to write a sort of life update post! I haven't written a life update in a while... in fact, I know I've been pretty AWOL around here lately, something to do with the small fact that I have zero inspiration for blog posts and even less time to write them. But never mind, I'm here now! And I'm about to treat you all (or torture you) to me rambling about my thoroughly uninteresting life!! Yay!!

Well, as you may or may not know, it's been snowing pretty heavily throughout the UK (and most of Europe, actually, as far as I know) this past week, and it snowed where I live! If you don't know, snow is actually pretty rare in London; it usually snows a little bit every year but it rarely settles and if it does, it only lasts a few hours. Well, all this past week we've had several inches of snow in my neighbourhood - it started snowing on Monday and it's been snowing on and off since then. The last time it snowed like this was about five years ago so this was pretty awesome.

My garden on Tuesday

My garden on Wednesday morning!

This was yesterday

It's pretty much all melted by now *sob, sob*, though I was getting a little tired of so much cold weather (I swear temperatures have been below freezing all week?? This is not cool??). I'm really keen for Spring to come, so I can go on outings and do lots of things that I have planned for when the weather gets a little warmer.

In other news, I recently found out that I won first place in the writing competition hosted by Gracie Chick and Gracie Marchiani!! *squeeaaals* Thank you sooo much to Gracie and Gracie, it means the absolute WORLD to me that someone thinks that my writing is good enough to win a competition! If you want to check out the story I entered, "Flames", you can find it here.  

I've been thinking, since the story I wrote had a lot to do with fire, maybe it would be cool for me to write three more short stories that are each about a different element, i.e. water, earth and air? Only... I have no ideas for short stories that have something to do with water, earth or air... so... that doesn't really work out... eh, I'll just keep it in the back of mind, maybe I'll come up with something at some point.

Aside from winning writing competitions (okay Andrea, you can stop bragging now jeez) my creative writing hasn't been going that well lately. I've just... I've lost all my passion for my WIP??? I keep finding so many faults with it and I start thinking my writing is awful, and because I'm thinking my writing is awful, my writing gets worse - it's a vicious cycle. I was super motivated at the start of last month; I swear I wrote about 5,000 words in a week, which is a LOT for me! But then... I just suddenly lost all my motivation? 

I just keep worrying that everyone's going to find lots of negative things to say about my book and that they're going to think it's rubbish. Like, it's a first draft! It's meant to be rubbish! I'll just edit the crap out of it later! That's what I tell myself whenever I'm feeling down about my writing project, and it usually works, but not lately. I keep worrying that by the time I get to the editing stage, my project will already have so many flaws that I'll be unable to turn it into something that's actually good.

I'll admit it: one of my major worries about my book is that my main character, Ashley, has some kind of autism and I'm scared that I'm making lots of mistakes while writing her character?? I'm scared that everyone's going to think that the autism rep is badly written or offensive or I DON'T KNOW. Like, I haven't really done much research? I just thought I'd write the first draft and then do research on types of autism to find if Ashley matches one of them, or if she matches some other condition, but now I'm thinking that's just dumb? I should have done the research earlier... idk I'm just sort of freaking out.

I guess it all comes down to the fear that people are going to think that I'm a bad writer. The stories that live inside me are something that's so deeply a part of me that the idea that others might think they're no good is sort of terrifying. I put so much love and passion into crafting my characters that I can't bear the thought of people thinking that they're badly written or unrealistic. And feeling scared like this has been making me feel really anxious about writing lately.

I mean, this is just a phase!! This is obviously just a phase! I've been through something like this before. Before long I'll start believing in my story again and feeling passionate about it and start feeling good about writing. I LOVE my characters, Ashley and Gemini and Flint and Isra and Elia and Gene, they're so smol and damaged and precious, I'm not going to give up on them yet! Until I manage to re-gain my passion for writing, though, maybe it's a good idea for me to just take a break from my WIP. 

Anyway, I didn't mean this post to get so deep, I wasn't intending to write all this, but it feels really good to get all these things that have been worrying me off my chest. I'm actually feeling more optimistic about my writing now, thanks to this post - it's made me see things with a different perspective.

Hope you enjoyed this little ramble! Do you sometimes suffer from writerly anxieties too?? And have you had snow this week where you live? 

Gotta go,

>>>Andrea<<<