My very first experience writing a book was when I was 15. I wrote a story loosely based on my high school crush, (who was just my friend at the time) and how we would fall madly in love and be those people at the 10 year reunion no one can stand.
Since then, I hadn’t really written anything other than journal entries and blog posts. Luckily in the fall of 2009 I was fortunate enough to hear about
NaNoWriMo. Before NaNo, I never would have thought I could write a book at age 30ish, (especially not in 30 days) in fact I had given up the hope that I would ever be anything other than a worker bee raising my daughter.
When I decided to participate in NaNo, I had no idea what I would write about. I have ideas in my head for stories all the time, but I never wrote them down or attempted to flesh them out. I decided that since I didn’t have an original idea, I’d stick with what I knew. My 2009 NaNo was an autobiographical account of my 20s which was a level of catharsis I never even expected. I wrote about the agony and the ecstasy of getting married, becoming a mother, and getting divorced all by age 25 and how it resulted in the biggest quarter life crisis you could imagine. I ended up with 75,000 angst filled words that no one should ever be forced to read.
But I did it.
In the year leading up to 2010 NaNo, I thought a lot about writing and what kind of books I’d want to write, I joined a writing group full of incredibly talented women, and I read so many great books that simultaneously inspired me beyond belief and made me feel like a huge poser. Then around summer I got a story idea, it niggled in the back of mind until I finally started jotting ideas down. It became apparent that I was on to something and as November drew closer, I decided to go for it.
By the end of November 2010, I had written a 60k word draft based on my original story idea. I spoke about the process during NaNo
here on the blog and I was so excited about it. I felt like I was standing in the light of Judy Blume, Toni Morrison, and S.E. Hinton and it felt absolutely AMAZING.
Then came December. I read over my draft and decided I hated it. I became super emo and depressed and wanted to chuck the whole thing. My self-doubt convinced me that whatever I had written would be garbage and I should just stick to reading books instead of writing them. So I stopped...I put my WIP in the proverbial freezer and I quit.
You know that saying, we make plans and God laughs?
I had plans to mope around and give up on writing forever. Then last April I just so happened to meet
Dave Eggers at the
Festival of Books and in our brief time together, he talked to me about my writing and gave me so much encouragement I tear up even thinking about it.
I would go to book signings simply to fangirl out over the authors of my favorite books and end up receiving little nuggets of wisdom that were always the exact thing I needed to hear at that exact moment. Whether it was Lauren Oliver's commitment to writing something every single day, Ally Condie talking about the balance of writing and motherhood, Laini Taylor's refusal to submit to another idea until her current project was complete, or Rachel Hawkins only writing a small amount of words per day, Laurie Halse Anderson telling me to stop farting around on the Internet and just write already, or Beth Revis writing book after book that never went anywhere until one finally did years later. It's amazing to think that these successful authors who write books that my friends and I love could have the same hangups or idiosyncrasies as I do.
Writing is a process and a struggle for anyone who does it. I’m sure I don’t hold the monopoly on feeling all Van Gogh-ish and suffering for my art. I find myself getting so caught up in the emotion of what I’m writing and so personally attached to my characters. While that's all well and good, I need to focus on the business of writing as well and treat it like a job...basically I need to start writing like it's payday and the rent is due.*
Currently I work a 9 to 5 where I'm responsible for a lot of different things. If I drop the ball on any one of these responsibilities, bad things can happen to people who don't deserve it. Needless to say, I rock at my job. I work extremely hard because I care about the work I do, and also because my job is what keeps the princess fed.
This year I need to become better at the job that feeds my soul. 2012 is all about the writing. I have no expectations other than how great it makes me feel to use my positive, creative energy towards something I love to do. No matter what ends up happening on my personal journey of 1000 miles, my ultimate goal of becoming a better writer is definitely step in the right direction.
*That isn't mine, it's Miss Jay's..diva runway coach extraordinaire from America's Next Top Model
