When I started toying with the idea to write I did what I do anytime I want to learn more about something... I bought a book.
I went into my local Barnes and Noble, aka heaven. I always chose to go to the store rather than buy online if I could help it. Barnes and Noble was one of my most favorite happy places, and still is. I don't remember that book writing books were on my shopping list that day. This was most likely one of my regularly scheduled visits to B&N but I do remember that I was alone.
When I go to a B&N alone I usually wander around enjoying the smell of the cafe and rows upon rows of books. I love finding a aisle that is void of people and immersing myself in the sensation of being surrounded by things that I love. Bonus points if that aisle is for a genre that I am interested in. I remember one time I spent 2 hours in the store and didn't realize it until I got a phone call from my mother asking me where I was.
I was doing my usual wandering (For those that have ever been shopping with me, they know exactly what I'm talking about) around B&N and ended up in the Self Help/How To section. After bypassing all the books on parenting, weight loss books, and an entire section on getting married, I found a few books on how to write. There was one title in particular that called to me. Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies It was the only one on the shelf specifically dedicated to genre that I wanted to write and I was certainly a dummy, so the book seemed like a perfect fit.
I grabbed the book off the shelf like 30 other people were trying to climb over me to get to it. I held it close to my chest and sprinted to the checkout. I completed my red-faced purchase and took my new treasure home where I put it on a book shelf and left it for about, oh, I don't know, 8 years.
I think I should clarify my red-faced checkout. For a very long time I was a closeted Romance Novel fan. I loved the stories and the characters but I was so embarrassed to have people see me reading them. I would blush every time I handed my stacks of books over the middle aged man or the condescending college girl behind the register at the B&N. Just looking at the covers it was very clear what was going on in these books. If anyone ever asked me what kind of books I liked to read, I would respond with a little bit of everything but would say my main interest was in historical fiction. Which wasn't a lie.
Those who know me now know I have no problem sharing exactly what books I read, how I feel about them and will actually whip them out for people to see. I suppose you can say I have come out of the closet in that respect and I am not shy about it!
While my book spent the years slumbering away on the bottom self of my bookcase, I went on fantasizing what it would be like if I could actually write a book. A whole book. Then I would be filled with instant terror at the very idea and move on to some other thought.
I would occasionally stand in front of my 7 foot book case just to admire my books. What, you don't do that? I would see the writing book sitting down on the shelf and it always seemed like it was waking up, stretching and then through a yawn would say, "Pick me up, read me, let's do this!" I would always tell it to go back to sleep. The idea of turning the few measly scenes I had into my head into a whole book still scared me to death. I knew I wasn't ready to try.
So while my book gathered dust I started poking around other places for information. Did you know that there's a ton of it out there on the internet?
I think I googled something to the effect of "How to start writing". After poking through a few of the first few selections which were all college courses on writing, I found a small interview with an author for some small magazine.
This author (I'm sorry to say I never caught his name or that of the magazine) used the idea of story-boarding Like in movies! I'm sure this isn't unique to this author but I certainly was in love with the idea.
This author said that when he would get an idea for a book it usually started with one scene. Then, as it incubated in his brain he would get more and more scenes. So he would write each scene on some note cards. Then later he could lay them out, put them in the order he wanted and decide how he got from one scene to the next. Doing it this way, he claimed, would show you exactly where the holes in your story were and what needed more structure.
This was a great idea. I had done this idea of note cards before. Writing research papers in junior high our teacher taught us to put one fact on a note card with the source information right on it. Later, when you were outlining or writing the paper it would be easier to cite sources and keep information organized.
I went out a bought a deck of note cards. I had so many scenes bubbling through my head for so many different books by this time. I spent an entire Sunday afternoon at my parents house, while everyone else watched football, writing out one scene per note card. I think my family was so happy I was finally trying to do something about it instead of just talking about it they pretty much let me be.
But in my head I imagine they were in the other room asking each other if I was really going to do this between yelling at the refs and running around like crazy when their team scored. ahem, Jon...
After I wrote it all down, the note cards joined the book on the shelf for a few years. After everything was down on paper and I didn't have to try to remember it all the time I stopped thinking about it so much.
Every once in a while I would think of some new scenes so I would write them down and add them to the pile.
One day I realized that the note cards I was writing were all for one book idea and that the pile had gotten rather large.
That's the day I picked up the Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies book. I figured if all my attention was suddenly on this one story idea, then maybe I was onto something.
I was terrified when I started reading it. How was I going to remember everything in this book when I sat down later to write? How many of you have read a text book and then sometime later try to remember everything you learned from it? It didn't always go so well. :-)
I thought my success at writing all started with my ability to retain what I learned in this book. That was a lot of pressure to put on myself and it almost made me put the book back on the shelf.
But I didn't. I read it. What I found as I started burning through the chapters was that everything the writer was saying I was saying to myself, "I'm doing that", or "I have that"
What this book did for me was really give me the confidence that I was already on the right track. She also stressed the importance of writing an outline.
But that's another story all together!
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