Starting my writing adventure

Welcome to my first blog about my writing adventure! My name is Angelique, I am 32 years old and live in the Netherlands with my two dogs. I wrote my debut novel How (Not) To Date (that is out now). And I want to take you with me on this journey with a blog about writing. So jump on to find out how I started writing my first book and how I am now writing my second book: Isabelle & Jullian! To start a story: One of the things you need to write a novel is.. surprise surprise.. an idea! This can come from different things, you can think about it at a moment, get inspired by something or someone and sometimes I even dream a part of it. With how (Not) To Date I had this idea in mind for a romcom about terrible dates and that is how it started. I have a small notebook that is sort of my idea book, I write down anything that comes to mind and add things to ideas I already had. Cause you never know when you get them and if I don't write them down there is a big chance I have trouble remember them later on.

But when you have an idea, what is next? How do you start? I wrote my idea down and started to think more about what the story would be like. Who would the main character be? What kind of work would she do? How would she go on dates? How would the story start? I started with my main character and what kind of person she would be, I already knew she would started dating on a dating app, so it was easy to write the first part. When I wrote it I would see it in my mind as a movie playing and I would figure out most along the way not tacking too much time on the details at first. The hardest part of writing: For me this is making up names, it sounds really simple but is one of the things I can struggle with. The name has to fit with the character I have in mind for the story. And that is not the only part, I like to have a positive association with the name I pick. So people that use to be in my life in a negative way are names that I would like to avoid. And that might sound crazy, but writing a story is a personal thing for me, it is something I do with all my heart and has to feel just as right for me as for the story. The main character for my first book Layla, is named after one of the first roles that I played for a short video that I did years ago. The name feels powerful, perfect for the character I have in mind and it is the ideal combination of my passion for acting and my passion for writing. Playing Layla in the short video was the moment I realized I loved acting and wished I could do that every day! As I never thought writing would be something I would love so much I wanted the name for my main character to be extra special. This is how my adventure as a writer started and became something I never thought I would do, but now can’t think of being without. It resulted in a awesome (okay I am biased) short novel, a chicklit that is fun to read!  Curious on the end result of How (Not) To Date? Check it out on hownottodate.nl! Don't want to miss a blog? Subscribe to the mailing list and you will be the first to know! You can also follow me on Instagram: 

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