Aspirations

On October 5, 2013, I got an idea for a book. Every now and then, I would consider writing a book, but I could never get it right. The beginning would elude me, or I'd be unsure how it should end. So it never got far enough to really be considered a draft of a book.

But this book idea was good. So I wrote out my ideas for it, and started writing.

It is so much fun. It's not at all what I thought writing would be like. It's significantly harder that I imagined. I can have the entire scene perfectly in my mind, but then I have to put it into words. Which is difficult to do. It is also very intimate. As I'm writing, I'm picturing the things that are happening, putting myself in the shoes of my characters, and therefore feeling the emotions of them. Certainly to a lesser degree than the characters would themselves, if they were real, but there is still an emotional connection, which I was not expecting.

It is also quite scary. Because it is so personal, it makes it so much of me. Which means that, when I've written it and edited it and am trying to get it published, rejection is going to be difficult. I'm aware of how hard it is to get published, and while I personally do feel that it is a good story and could be a happily published book, I do admit that I am fairly biased. So to take the step to say, "I am writing a book" and to mean it, is taking a huge risk. Because it might not get published. This is my first book. I may need to write quite a few more books before my writing is good enough to be published. And that rejection will hurt.

But I'll keep on trying. I have other book ideas, and if this one does not work out, I'll write something else. I'll put this one away somewhere until someday when I have figured this whole being a writer thing out, and I will pull it back out and redo it. Or perhaps I will look at it and shake my head at my naivete.

I will learn. I will improve. I aspire to be a published author. And one day, I'll make that aspiration a reality.