Follow Your Dreams

I haven't updated my blog for some time. That's because I've been busy completing a project that I began last spring. I'm writing a mystery novel. It's something I have always wanted to do, and so I am finally doing it.

I have a tendency to begin projects and never quite complete them. Some simply must get finished, and somehow I manage to get through them. Others are easier to put off. Writing a novel falls into the latter category for several reasons.

1) It's just plain scary. You're putting something you have created, something that is a part of you out there for the whole world to see - and judge. And they don't call them critics for nothing.

2) It's hard. Let's face it. Writing is hard work. It is all consuming as the characters occupy your mind day and night. You have to sit down in front of a blank page or screen and start writing, even if you haven't got an idea of where you're headed with that scene. You agonize over finding the right word, only to scrap that sentence, paragraph or entire page the next day when you reread your work.

3) It takes a long time. You can't write a novel in a short amount of time. It takes months to plan it out and months to write it and months to rewrite it. Even though I'm writing like the wind for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I began thinking about this book a long time ago, and there will be many edits before the final draft is complete.

4) It may never be published. Book publishing is a business and editors won't buy a book unless they believe it will sell many copies. That makes it harder to break into the business, but it doesn't make the effort of writing the book any less worthwhile.

Next blog - the Joys of Writing a Novel