It took a really long time for me to work up the courage to decide I had enough material to cover a whole book.
If you think about it, books are long. It takes many dedicated hours to get through even a moderate sized one. If it's good those hours don't really seem like anything. If the book is... not so good... every hour reading it seems like a day. You feel like you've been reading it forever, and not in a good way. You just want to get through it and move on to a new, more exciting book.
I don't abandon books easily. It has to really just tweak me in a certain way for me to completely give up on it. Most times I will suffer through, knowing the author made a valiant effort and then I can't even really bring myself to make a poor review on Goodreads. I feel their pain and I wouldn't want someone else to do that to me when I get there. There will, of course, be those out there that don't like my book and I'm sure I will agonize over that, but let's cross that bridge when we get there.
I had an idea for a book, was it good? I don't know. It sounded really awesome to me! But when its your little fantasy that you've been daydreaming about for years it better be pretty good to you.
The question was, was it good enough that other people would want to read it too? Not only do I want them to read it, I don't want the vast majority of people out there to keep checking their collective watches while slowly but surely making their way through my agonizingly boring book.
It has to be good, I told myself, or its not worth doing at all.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist in a lot of ways. It's not house cleaning or car maintenance, but when I really put my mind to doing something I want to be the best!
Because of this mind set I felt like I had to have everything perfect before I could actually begin to write.
The office has to be cleaned up
I need a new desk chair
I need a bulletin board
I need a printer
I have to finish the book I'm currently reading
I have to finish the Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies book
I need word processing software
Ok maybe the last one was slightly more necessary than the others. I thought I was going to need all of this stuff before I could even begin writing. I'm sure if you ask my husband this list is not complete.
I kept getting a lot of questions from friends and family about how my writing was going. I always had something to say about it.
"Well I can start writing as soon as the planets align, that baseball pitcher throws that perfect game and my son goes to bed on time, all on the same night!"
One day when I actually heard myself telling someone that I couldn't start writing because I was waiting for Jon to hang a bulletin board in the office I realized I was really just making excuses. I still felt like I couldn't do it.
I was having a hard time pulling the trigger because I wasn't even sure the gun would fire. Here I am standing at the range, knowing I want to shoot a gun but I'm not sure if the bullets I have on me are going to work.
My real problem wasn't the list of tasks I needed to accomplish before I could begin writing. My problem was that I was still doubting myself.
It was that day that I pulled the note cards off the bookshelf and started to work on getting them in order and figure out where my holes were.
I am still full of doubt, that hasn't changed. I decided that instead of constantly questioning whether or not I could do this, I should just start and see if I could.
It was a good decision and I'm glad I made it. Time will tell if I'm actually good at this, but at least then I will know for sure. I don't want to wake up 50 years from now still wondering if I could have done it and never knowing.
I might be late to the party, but at least I'm showing my face!
Monday, January 28, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Writing night
So today is Thursday. This is my usual writing night of the week.
Thanks to my need to put food on the table and provide for my family I have a nice, steady, bill paying job.
That job has landed me, literally, in Pittsburgh for the rest of the work week.
So what does this mean? It means that tonight I will not be able to work on my book. And I have to say I'm actually missing it.
So to get my writing fix, I'm sitting in my hotel room constructing this blog entry from an app on my phone.
So while I probably won't be able to carve out any book writing time until next week, I'm happy that I feel bad for not being able to work on it.
It's very easy to just put it off and procrastinate another day but that does not produce a book.
I'm sure when my next writing night rolls around I'll be tempted to say that I just don't have the energy. Hopefully I'll look back on today, remember how I missed being able to write, and get to work.
Then go to bed with a smile on my face.
Thanks to my need to put food on the table and provide for my family I have a nice, steady, bill paying job.
That job has landed me, literally, in Pittsburgh for the rest of the work week.
So what does this mean? It means that tonight I will not be able to work on my book. And I have to say I'm actually missing it.
So to get my writing fix, I'm sitting in my hotel room constructing this blog entry from an app on my phone.
So while I probably won't be able to carve out any book writing time until next week, I'm happy that I feel bad for not being able to work on it.
It's very easy to just put it off and procrastinate another day but that does not produce a book.
I'm sure when my next writing night rolls around I'll be tempted to say that I just don't have the energy. Hopefully I'll look back on today, remember how I missed being able to write, and get to work.
Then go to bed with a smile on my face.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Ready, Set... Ready, Set... Ready, set, GO!
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!
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!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Unexpected Encouragment
When I finally decided, this is it,
I'm going to do it. I'm going to write a novel. Random memories from
my life started to pop up. Things started coming to me in flashes
with complete clairty. Kinda like waking up after a morning of
drinking and remembering what you did the night before in small
incriments. Not that I have ever done that...
Anyway, I started to remember that I have been writing fiction for some time. I remember a time after school, I must have been in the 4th grade, I wrote a story for our babysitter. I don't recall what the story was about now but I do remember my babysitter pointing out that I spelled machines incorrectly. She was in highschool and apparently knowledgeable in how to spell things. I must have been unaware of this when I asked her to read it. I was writing in a Lisa Frank diary, there was no spell check. I tried to play it off like I meant to misspell machine because I was making up some new type of machines. I don't think she bought it.
When I was in 9th grade my english teacher handed out those little blue test booklets that most of you will probably remember from college. He said that we had to write in them. He didn't care what it was and he was not going to read them. All he cared about was that we wrote 4 pages every week. On Fridays he would walk around to each student and we would have to show him our 4 pages and he would sign the bottom of the last page to ensure you didn't try to pass off old work. I remember being ridiculously excited about this. I was being encouraged to write whatever I wanted and no one was going to read it. I instantly decided on fiction. I actually wrote what would today be considered a Young Adult Fantasy Romance. It included magic medallions, deserted islands, seemingly unstoppable forces of evil and of course a hunky guy that my heroine instantly fell for. I wonder if I kept these and have them stashed away somewhere. I'm pretty sure that one story filled most of the school year. I must have filled a dozen of those little blue test booklets in 4 page chunks.
My senior year of highschool we had the option to take a 4th year of english, or we could take a one semester writing course and a one semester literary course. Since my high school offered a creative writing class I opted for the latter.
I always loved my English classes. Most of my classmates would complain about the books we were reading but I usually enjoyed them. In an attempt to not standout and therefore subject myself to ridicule (I got that on plenty of other topics) I complained right along with the rest of them. I was a closet english-class-book-lover.
There were plenty of writing exercises in my Creative Writing class and I remember enjoying most of them, except for one. We were given the assignment of writing about our happy places. I remember getting the rush of excitement sitting in my desk. My happy place. What could be better? I started writing in my head almost instantly.
I wrote about a warm, white sandy beach, with waves big enough to boogie board in. The water was so warm you could actually enjoy said boogie boarding without having to go numb. I live in New England. If you get in the water here you have to wait until you're numb to enjoy any aquatic activity. There was no one else on my beach, this was my happy place. I think even dolphins played in the water with me.
On the day it was due I felt like Ralphie from A Christmas Story walking up to pass in his theme. There was no way my teacher wasn't going to just love this! I mean its about someone's happy place. How could you hate it?
Apparently my teacher did. I got a C on that paper. A C! Not even a C+, a C. I'm pretty sure this was one of the first Cs I ever received on any assignment ever! I was shocked. I felt like this was one of my best pieces of work. You could feel the sun on your face and the sand under your toes just from reading about my friggin happy place! How could that not be worthy of an A?
Then I started to look at all the red marks. She crossed out so many words on my paper there were enough straight lines to make it look like it coded. In her summary at the end she felt my wording was too "flowery" and that most of the words I used were "unnecessary". From that day on I decided that I did not share her definition of descriptive writing.
Maybe she had a point, without acutally going back and reading the paper now its hard to say. But even to this day I find it hard to believe that paper deserved a C. All my other work was graded well and I ended up with an A in the class.
I think that class, and that one assignment in particular, really discouraged me from something I really enjoyed doing. I was always coming up with little short stories and ideas but I remember a lot of that coming to a grinding halt after that. Luckly the Literary course I took the second semester of my senior year introduced me to some wonderful books and authors. I read for the first time one of my favorite books in that class.
When I got to college I had to take another required class. My roommate talked me into taking a class called Women in Contemporary American Culture with her.
It was a class I needed to graduate and a Gen-Ed with your roommate and friend was always a great idea!
It ended up being one of my favs. And I love guy reactions to the name of this course. Every one of them comes to the conclusion that its a feminist class. I can assure you there was no bra burning or marching around the room shaking our fists and shouting Votes For Women!
This class was one step away from a book club. We would read short stories and books that were all gynocentric (writen by women and women were the main characters). We also looked at a lot of examples of women in pop culture. My final was a group project with my roommate about Sex and the City!
After each book or short story we would read we would be required to write about it. What we liked, what we disliked and how it made us feel. We usually had to turn in a 3 page paper once a week. A lot like my days in 9th grade english except I didn't get cart blanche to write whatever I wanted and someone was most definitely reading and grading it but it was free from anything overly structured.
About half way through the semester the professor stopped me on my way out of the classroom just to tell me that she though I wrote beautifully and that she enjoyed reading my papers every week. I'm pretty sure I floated back to my apartment after this statement.
It wasn't until years later, when I decided I was going to try my hand at writing, that I even remembered most of this. But thinking back on it now, I still get a warmy fuzzy feeling from that compliment.
When I first started talking about writing I got a lot of fantasic encouragement from my family, friends, and most of all my husband. But I still felt like I wouldn't be able to do it. The C on my overly flowery happy place came back to taunt me. If I couldn't even write about my happy place what made me think I could do it for a whole book?
It wasn't until I started to remember that this wouldn't be my first adventure into fiction. I had been doing it for a long time. I had highs and I had lows, I couldn't let the one bad thing I remember about writing discourage me from all the other times I thought I did well. I sure couldn't let keep me from trying something that is almost becoming necessary just to silence the characters in my head.
Anyway, I started to remember that I have been writing fiction for some time. I remember a time after school, I must have been in the 4th grade, I wrote a story for our babysitter. I don't recall what the story was about now but I do remember my babysitter pointing out that I spelled machines incorrectly. She was in highschool and apparently knowledgeable in how to spell things. I must have been unaware of this when I asked her to read it. I was writing in a Lisa Frank diary, there was no spell check. I tried to play it off like I meant to misspell machine because I was making up some new type of machines. I don't think she bought it.
When I was in 9th grade my english teacher handed out those little blue test booklets that most of you will probably remember from college. He said that we had to write in them. He didn't care what it was and he was not going to read them. All he cared about was that we wrote 4 pages every week. On Fridays he would walk around to each student and we would have to show him our 4 pages and he would sign the bottom of the last page to ensure you didn't try to pass off old work. I remember being ridiculously excited about this. I was being encouraged to write whatever I wanted and no one was going to read it. I instantly decided on fiction. I actually wrote what would today be considered a Young Adult Fantasy Romance. It included magic medallions, deserted islands, seemingly unstoppable forces of evil and of course a hunky guy that my heroine instantly fell for. I wonder if I kept these and have them stashed away somewhere. I'm pretty sure that one story filled most of the school year. I must have filled a dozen of those little blue test booklets in 4 page chunks.
My senior year of highschool we had the option to take a 4th year of english, or we could take a one semester writing course and a one semester literary course. Since my high school offered a creative writing class I opted for the latter.
I always loved my English classes. Most of my classmates would complain about the books we were reading but I usually enjoyed them. In an attempt to not standout and therefore subject myself to ridicule (I got that on plenty of other topics) I complained right along with the rest of them. I was a closet english-class-book-lover.
There were plenty of writing exercises in my Creative Writing class and I remember enjoying most of them, except for one. We were given the assignment of writing about our happy places. I remember getting the rush of excitement sitting in my desk. My happy place. What could be better? I started writing in my head almost instantly.
I wrote about a warm, white sandy beach, with waves big enough to boogie board in. The water was so warm you could actually enjoy said boogie boarding without having to go numb. I live in New England. If you get in the water here you have to wait until you're numb to enjoy any aquatic activity. There was no one else on my beach, this was my happy place. I think even dolphins played in the water with me.
On the day it was due I felt like Ralphie from A Christmas Story walking up to pass in his theme. There was no way my teacher wasn't going to just love this! I mean its about someone's happy place. How could you hate it?
Apparently my teacher did. I got a C on that paper. A C! Not even a C+, a C. I'm pretty sure this was one of the first Cs I ever received on any assignment ever! I was shocked. I felt like this was one of my best pieces of work. You could feel the sun on your face and the sand under your toes just from reading about my friggin happy place! How could that not be worthy of an A?
Then I started to look at all the red marks. She crossed out so many words on my paper there were enough straight lines to make it look like it coded. In her summary at the end she felt my wording was too "flowery" and that most of the words I used were "unnecessary". From that day on I decided that I did not share her definition of descriptive writing.
Maybe she had a point, without acutally going back and reading the paper now its hard to say. But even to this day I find it hard to believe that paper deserved a C. All my other work was graded well and I ended up with an A in the class.
I think that class, and that one assignment in particular, really discouraged me from something I really enjoyed doing. I was always coming up with little short stories and ideas but I remember a lot of that coming to a grinding halt after that. Luckly the Literary course I took the second semester of my senior year introduced me to some wonderful books and authors. I read for the first time one of my favorite books in that class.
When I got to college I had to take another required class. My roommate talked me into taking a class called Women in Contemporary American Culture with her.
It was a class I needed to graduate and a Gen-Ed with your roommate and friend was always a great idea!
It ended up being one of my favs. And I love guy reactions to the name of this course. Every one of them comes to the conclusion that its a feminist class. I can assure you there was no bra burning or marching around the room shaking our fists and shouting Votes For Women!
This class was one step away from a book club. We would read short stories and books that were all gynocentric (writen by women and women were the main characters). We also looked at a lot of examples of women in pop culture. My final was a group project with my roommate about Sex and the City!
After each book or short story we would read we would be required to write about it. What we liked, what we disliked and how it made us feel. We usually had to turn in a 3 page paper once a week. A lot like my days in 9th grade english except I didn't get cart blanche to write whatever I wanted and someone was most definitely reading and grading it but it was free from anything overly structured.
About half way through the semester the professor stopped me on my way out of the classroom just to tell me that she though I wrote beautifully and that she enjoyed reading my papers every week. I'm pretty sure I floated back to my apartment after this statement.
It wasn't until years later, when I decided I was going to try my hand at writing, that I even remembered most of this. But thinking back on it now, I still get a warmy fuzzy feeling from that compliment.
When I first started talking about writing I got a lot of fantasic encouragement from my family, friends, and most of all my husband. But I still felt like I wouldn't be able to do it. The C on my overly flowery happy place came back to taunt me. If I couldn't even write about my happy place what made me think I could do it for a whole book?
It wasn't until I started to remember that this wouldn't be my first adventure into fiction. I had been doing it for a long time. I had highs and I had lows, I couldn't let the one bad thing I remember about writing discourage me from all the other times I thought I did well. I sure couldn't let keep me from trying something that is almost becoming necessary just to silence the characters in my head.
If you're like me and you're even
considering writing a novel, chances are you have a background story
that is similar to mine.
My childhood wasn't teeming with
literary masterpieces, it wasn't even teeming with literary flops. I
wrote from time to time when the inspiration hit. I spent a lot of
my time outside of school playing with friends and playing softball.
After all the positive feedback and
encouragement I got from those around me, I didn't really feel like I
could do it until I remembered things like this. My friends and family were convinced I could do it and told me so but the most effective encouragement I got
was from myself. I know that sounds incredibly cliche, but there you
have it. Sometimes the best encouragment is the encouragement that
comes from some unexpected places.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Adventures in Blogging?
I'm a Noob.
For those of you who don't know, noob means a newbie, a brand new, out of the box, completely inexperienced, emotionally naked as the day you were born, new.
As a kid I never thought to myself "When I grow up I want to be a successful novelist and, what the heck, let's throw in blog writing for good measure." I didn't say that until I was an adult, but more on that later.
Nope, when I was a kid my aspirations were to play softball on the US Olympic Team, chase tornadoes, and generally be outside whenever it was lightning.
I did always have an active imagination. I could come up with any game to play, entertain myself off in la-la land and come up with any tale that would absolve me of any wrongdoing.
From the time I was a kid I was a reader and lover of books. My mother, on more than one occasion, was afraid I would perish in my sleep under the inevitable avalanche of hard cover children's books I insisted on stacking at the foot of my bed.
Later, I couldn't get my hands on enough Fear Street books to keep me satisfied. I would quickly devour every page of the book with the glossy image of a terrified girl on the cover.
In college I was introduced to the historical romance novel, my gateway drug. This would eventually lead to a hardcore habit of Paranormal and Urban Fantasy reads. I haven't given up on historical romance, its still a good fix, I've just come a long way from where I started. I'd like to say I can quit whenever I want to but I'm not going to kid myself. I got it bad. I can blame my mom for this one. Sorry mom, she introduced me to the romance novel section of the bookstore in what was most likely an attempt at keeping me from reading the Fear Street Saga for the 23rd time. Ahh my first trilogy, memories...
Anyway, after I had a few years and a couple dozen historical romance novels under my belt I started to think of stories I would like to read. It started with me guessing how the author was going to end the story from a particular point (I do this with movies too). Then, I started to think well this is how I would end the story. I even looked into writing to a few of my favorite authors at the time to pitch my ideas. (Like successfully published authors needed my ideas). I then scrapped the thought because she probably wouldn't write it the way I wanted it and leave me horribly disappointed reading the mutilated remains of my idea.
Not that any of the authors I was thinking of would have done a bad job writing it, it just wouldn't have been what I was thinking of. It wouldn't have been mine.
The my father asked, "Why don't you write it?" So encouraging.
My first reaction to that was, yeah right, sure, then after that I'll cure cancer and bring peace to the Middle East.
I couldn't write a book! ... could I?
I spent a long time mulling it over in my head. But the one story didn't stay one story. Soon, idea after idea kept slamming into me, hitting me like the bolt of lightning I'm sure to catch for real one of these days. It was as if I was being possessed by characters who wanted to tell me their stories and show me what was happening to them. It was like a dream. You weren't really sure how it started or how it was going to end but you just knew things about what was going on at that moment.
These things kept building and building. More scenes, more characters. Before I knew it I was getting stuff on paper and I had the outline for a book. Not the book that first popped into my head all those years ago. That one is still hanging around in my bank but a different character decided to push her way to the front of my mental line.
So this brings me back to being a noob. Here I am, a 30 year old meteorologist working in a job that I enjoy, with a wonderfully supportive husband and 2 great kids.
I never thought I would add writer to that list. But here I am trying. I have no idea what I'm doing or if I will ever be successful at it. There will likely be some ups and some downs, and a few laughs along the way.
I can't be the only person out there in the same boat. So I was thinking I'll blog about it and let you join me on my adventures in writing my first novel, among other things.
And who knows, if I actually manage to get this thing down on paper and to a point where I feel I can let anyone other than myself into my little fantasy world. I might be willing to share some of it here as well.
Wish me luck. I'm jumping off the diving board into the deep end of shark infested waters. Its scary, its exciting, and I'm not sure I'll survive but at least I can say I gave it a try before I became Jaws' late night snack!
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