Long Days, Short Years

I finished my book.  I started the first scene a year ago, but honestly I had been composing that scene for several years in my head before I actually put pen to paper.

It took a long time to get here, but it happened.  I finally unlocked whatever had been keeping my ideas from spilling out on to the page.  It took six months to write the first three chapters and in the following six months I wrote almost 200 pages.  Talk about a floodgate opening.

Despite having small kids and household responsibilities I have persisted.  I write during naptimes, TV times, or the glorious 3 hours every week that I have a babysitter.  My favorite place to write is outside, but with the winter I had to settle with a large picture window overlooking the street in front of our house.

I am now in the revision stage.  Last week I got enough courage to actually ask for readers and I had a great group of women respond.  My husband has seen a lot of iterations of the story and I think he might be a little sensitive to the characterization of the husband.

“So when you say Derek does this, are you thinking of the time. . . ”  I remind him that it is a story through and through.  But it will be good to have outside readers not looking for themselves in my characters.

It is hard to hit send though to this group of willing readers.  As I have discovered the revision process is constant and more intense than the actual writing ever was.  I will sit up in bed at 2 am triumphantly shouting, “I finally know how Cat should resolve her conflict!” Michael will mumble something supportive like, “That’s great”  or “What time is it?”  as he rolls over to go back to sleep.  But my mind is still editing chapters instead of counting sheep.

I swear today I will hit send and see what people think.  That way I can get into the thick of editing once I know what a reader is looking for in my story.

When I was in fifth grade I decided I wanted to be a writer.  I had just read the Outsiders by SE Hinton and the way that story was crafted mesmerized me.  In high school I told myself writing wasn’t a real career so I chose to study politics and history in college reveling in my research papers that allowed me to write.  When I graduated and got bored writing another constituent letter, I went to library school so I could at least surround myself with the words of others.

Now it is my turn.  After 25 years and a few careers I am following my childhood dream.  This book I am writing may not be the next Great American novel.  It is not a work of literary genius.  But it is mine, a story I crafted by starting with an empty room that I slowly populated word by word into life.  And now I have a story.

This book may never get published, it may circulate the hands of my friends and be rejected.  And that is okay, because today I relish in the thought that I am a writer and I have finally found my voice.

What childhood dream did you have?  How are you pursuing it?

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