Hi, guys. Australia is burning at the moment. I don’t know if you have seen it on the news in your country. It is like the end of the world. The sky is red and the air is suffocating. People are losing homes and some people have lost their life. I pray that this all will stop soon. Hundreds and hundreds of homes have been decimated. Towns are levelled. It is heart breaking. It is hard for us to think about anything else at the moment.
I, however wanted to say something about my next novel I am writing. I must say in some ways it seems hollow writing about this at the moment. But I wanted to say this next novel – is so different from the first. It is written differently, it is from the first person (at the moment anyway) and it is a bit more something I am writing for myself. My first novel, Where the Sun Rises sought to honour the women I was writing about but also to create a story true to life, that expresses war from the female point of view. It was third person and involved so much research it was sometimes ridiculous haha. Where the Sun Rises does not have my life in it. But this new novel is much less research-based and has some elements of my life in it. It is still a work of fiction but it has some elements of my life. I am enjoying this very different experience of writing.
This is technically my third novel I have written. I wrote one when I was 25 as well. It had two points of view, one male and one female. An interesting process.
I wish to enjoy this process and exploring where this story is going and how this character is developing. For me, writing is an adventure like when I was a kid and that is all I wanted to do, explore all of the world. I feel in writing, I am exploring the world through an interior and mysterious process. It truly makes me feel free. If I can express a story and make it come alive to a reader, I feel phenomenal. It gives me so much peace and fulfilment.
When I am creating, I feel whole and taken out of the world up into the world of the imagination. In this process, I know it was what I was born to do. You can tell this, on the inside. I hope and pray that you find that which you are born to do this year! It makes you feel trully alive! After all, that’s what we want isn’t it, to feel vigorous and vibrant and like our truest self?
For this year, I feel happy that in my life I am finally writing novels and people are reading them. It has been my ambition my whole life. I am so thankful that this has finally become reality. I don’t mind the energy or passion I had to put in (which was a lot over many years), it felt like nothing, cause I adore it.
Anyway, I hope for you this year that you find your passion, the thing that makes you want to get up and get going in the morning! Embrace it! Life is so brief and you don’t want to regret opportunities you didn’t take, or talents you didn’t pursue out of fear or apprehension.
Go well, and be brave. I know you can. 🙂 Suz
Suzanne Strong 