Writing

I’ve been writing off and on since I was in 7th grade. I really got serious about it in 1999 when I finally finished a book. Yay!

It was awful!

I know you’ll say that I’m my own harshest critic but I’ve still got the original manuscript and it is quite literally rubbish.

The hardest part of writing is to get it all finished, to actually write a book with a beginning, middle and end then have it end! It’s hard to see it through to the very last page. It can be utterly exhausting to get it all down on paper but I’ve made a pattern I can follow now and I use it to create other books. The goal of writing is to get it all down and then to start editing it, changing this part or that part, making sure all the verb tenses are correct and that words are spelled correctly. I still have that book I wrote in 1999 in it’s original content and I have what it became after several years of editing. The two look nothing alike except for the characters’ names. Editing is supposed to be horrible but I found it to be so much fun. I enjoyed playing with the characters and trying new ways to make the dialog and the story interesting.

I’m looking into self-publication and what that might mean. I need to get some legal advice and ask questions and do some research but next year could be the year. With that said, I must say that writing was the most exciting, exhausting and liberating thing I’d ever done.

When I started caring for my mother and having flashbacks of what it was like being raised by a woman with full blown schizophrenia, I had no where to put all my feelings and those terrible memories I’d worked so hard to forget before they came back at the worst possible time. Writing gave me that outlet. It wasn’t like a diary nor was it a memoir. Instead it was a way to make use of those things, to put what I was feeling into words on a computer screen and make them behave. That’s the hardest part, making the characters behave. They often go off and do things I never, as the writer, wanted them to do! Then I have to find out how they’re going to get themselves out of that. But, I also confess to going back and rereading books I’ve written when I’m feeling down or sad. Oddly enough, I don’t remember what I was feeling when I wrote them. All I have left are the characters and the choices they made.

I grew up on print media. Holding a book in my hands is how I was raised. I’m hip though and I love Kindle and digital is the wave of the future. I’m not sure how I’ll feel when my book is finally published and ready for people to read and critique. I’m not as attached to that first book as I was so many years ago when it was like something sacred I gave birth to. Now it’s just a book, taking up space on my hard drive. But going into print could change that.

I may never see my  book in print, not in the traditional way. Handheld books are quickly becoming a thing of the past. I’ve recently delved into Audible and discovered I really like it. I can read and crochet at the same time! But having my book out there will be an experience and, whatever happens, my life will never be the same.

I’ll have to dream new dreams once I get my first book published.