Writing… am I right?
Yeah, it’s not easy. It’s work, and more work, piled on top of work covered in mountains of work. You can’t stop, though. It’s not something you choose to do one day. You don’t wake up and go, “Ladida, I want to write a book.” Well, I suppose there are people out there that wake up one day and go, “Ladida, Giant Book Publishing wrote me a check with 8 zeroes on it, so I should probably write that book.” For most writers, though, it isn’t a choice. It’s a compulsion. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t make it easy, it just makes it necessary.
We basically can’t stop ourselves.
That’s why I am sitting at my computer late into the night, working on something that I’m sure may never see the light of day.
I can’t not write.
It’s what I do. It’s who I am.
I am a writer.
So, I want to share with you all a little bit of what it is I’m working on. I want you to be part of my journey from hobbyist blogger to professional writer.
You deserve that much from me.
Some of you have been following this blog from the beginning, or near enough to it. If I’m going to make these strides to become something more than a poseur, I am doing so because all of you have helped me.
A few of you have even read the first draft of my book and given me some positive (and very constructive) feedback.
For those few of you that have, the next few days may seem familiar to you, because I’m going to spend the month of February either talking about what I am leaving in the book or posting the sections I am cutting.
The best feedback I have received came from my father, not surprisingly, and he told me a book needs to be a story. Even if I am writing about myself, I am a character and as the author I have to make my readers love that character. Or more likely hate them, since my first draft is basically 50,000 words of self hatred. It’s exorcising a very dark part of me, though, in the process of writing this book.
My goal at this point is simple:
I have a story to tell, and I want to tell it. I want to show the world that things happen in Suburban Midwest that are just as dark and poignant as they are on the coasts.
I want people to know that just because you think we’re fly over country, doesn’t mean we’re not important, and it doesn’t mean we’re not people.
Maybe that’s what will come of this, and maybe nothing will.
Either way, now, I have some accountability on it.
You’re all expecting things from me.
I can’t disappoint you.