This is a web log about my journey to the life of a professional writer. I plan to post at least five days a week, both as a writing practice and to share my journey with all the writers, artists, and musicians out there who struggle to find the time/energy/inspiration to make art. Even if I have to write about how I'm not writing, my goal is to keep up on this blog until I have become a successful writer. By successful writer I mean earning enough money from writing that it becomes my only job. It may never happen or it could take decades. We'll see!
I'm scared writing this blog because people will see just how lame my writing is, how bad my grammar, how entrenched my habit of procrastination, and how strong my fear. But my unwillingness to reveal these things has kept me from sharing my writing. And I can't live like that anymore. After years of neglect, my writing self is wilting up into a shriveled shell and taking the best of me with her. I can no longer pretend I was made to be a massage therapist or waitress, a bartender or nanny, a woodworker or gardener. I have known I'm a writer since I was nine and it's time to come out and be one!
At this point I could go on about how I got to where I am, why I want to be a writer, yaddah-yaddah. Instead, I will jump right into the meat of it and let stories of the past dribble out if they need to.
The first thing a writer needs is some sort of writing instrument. After years of writing on a computer I've recently returned to writing first drafts with pen and paper. I think my writing is better this way, more substantial and beautiful. The next thing a writer needs is time to write. Of this I have loads, it's just a matter of devoting my time to writing instead of sleeping in, watching TV, and other methods of time murder. I haven't firmly decided on a writing schedule, but I sense it would be a wise thing to do. I feel certain I can devote thirty minutes a day in the beginning and go from there. The third thing a writer needs is something to write about. And I have a novel in my head.
I woke up, months ago, with an entire novel in my head. How often does that happen? Not often to me, anyway. I am intensely drawn to writing a novel and have started dozens but finished none. I think this novel appearing right inside my brain, as if it were placed there, is an opportunity I can't pass up. But besides the novel, I am zinging with ideas for short stories, memoirs, articles, poems, songs, nonfiction, you name it. Ideas have never been difficult for me. (In fact, I think I have too many ideas, which end up getting in the way of each other.) It's the follow through that eludes me. The turning my idea into a finished piece of writing. No good at it. I've done it, I can do it, but I fail most of the time that I try. Which brings me to the last thing a writer needs: the ability to follow through. This is what I don't have. But I think I can learn it and use it.
On to the blog!
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