I was sitting in my Fiction Writing class the other day and my Professor announces to the class that one of our classmates has published her first novel. She then proceeds to hold it up in the air. This thing was legit. Not the run of the mill "I self published and it looks like it" stuff that I have seen some people do, no this was the real deal! Here's a picture of the cover:
Yeah! Nice huh? Its hard cover and everything! After seeing a classmate with a published book I had to talk to her after class. We talked for 45 minutes and we would have kept going if I hadn't had to go to my yoga class. So my friend Heather two summers ago was sitting at home without a job and said to herself "Ya know what? I am going to take this writing thing seriously." She then started a week long research campaign on this idea that had been brewing in her head and then after that week she started to write. And I am not talking "hey I have a spare moment why don't I jot somethings down" no, I am talking wake up at 6 am and write all day nonstop with only bathroom and food breaks and staying up until 1 or 2 am writing, going to bed and starting again at 6 the next morning. In one week she had a novel. ONE WEEK!!!! Do you know how many writers I know that it takes them months if not years to pound out their first draft? Countless.
Well I guess that is what seperates a professional and an amateur. In the book that we read for my Fiction class the author describes the writing process and he says that most writers get them selves to a point where it gets hard and then they allow themselves to get distracted by research or coffee or chores and then the novel/story never gets done. He says that above all else you must "Stay in the room". You can never allow yourself to get side tracked because it defuses all those creative juices that have been building up. You can do research later, you can use a filler name and hit babynames.com later, right now what you have to do is keep writing and a good way to do that is to write in things that propel you forward to your next sentence, your next paragraph, your next scene, your next chapter. And a great thing about this method is that if you are propelled forward during the writing it is most likely that your reader will be propelled forward as well.
Anyway, back to Heather. After this week of nonstop writing she took a week to decompress and then started back up again. In the successive two weeks she wrote the second and third books to complete her trilogy. How inspiring is that? I want to be like Heather Frost. And I decided I will. Even if there isn't a publisher in the world who will accept and publish my novel I WILL FINISH IT! And I intend to finish it this winter break. I am going to lock myself up with ear plugs and noise cancelling headphones and I am going to write. I am going to finish a book damn it! If it kills me I will finish! I am a writer. I am commited. I will do what I was born to do.
I know, again a little melodramatic, but that's how inspired I feel right now. I know I can do it. I know I can be successful. I know I don't have to rely on my plan B. I can actually attempt plan A without fear, without doubt and without guilt. I will write a novel.
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