I'm writing again! About two years ago, I started writing a novel. It was an upbeat little novel set in a small Southern town much like the one I live in - well, that's stretching it a bit to call the little community I live in a town. But my characters lived in a real cozy little town with a Main Street and everything. They were living and breathing people with normal everyday joys and problems just like you and me. And then something happened - I'm not sure what. Maybe it was self-doubt about my writing abilities - maybe it was that I got involved in too many other things - my blogging for instance. I was still writing, wasn't I? It was instant gratification. There it was - right in front of me - completed in a couple of hours instead of taking months developing my characters and scenes. I could hit the Publish button and hey, I was self published.
"What do you do?" people would ask. "I write". "Have you been published?" "Well....only my blogs". "Do people read it?" "Oh yes, my post on Strawberry Santas got over 20,000 pageviews". Now, that revelation embarrassed me. 20,000 people read a post about something that wasn't even my idea. It was the least fine tuned blog I ever wrote - just someone else's recipe and someone else's photo and probably took me ten minutes to write. The only reason it got so many page views was that everyone wanted the recipe. Was that something to be proud of? Nope!
Then, I was chatting on Facebook with an old high school friend - not in the age sense of "old" - we both know we're young at heart anyway, don't we Dr. Taylor? Dr. Taylor is a college professor and was gracious enough to compliment me on my writing style. I told him about my book and he encouraged me to get back to work on it! Sometimes all it takes is a few words of encouragement to get you back on track. I'm not saying that I don't get encouragement from other people - Henry especially is my biggest fan. He loves to read what I write - but he loves me so of course he would.
But here we are! I won't be doing much blog writing any time soon. My characters have come to life again. They're riding bicycles down main street, going to church, planting their gardens and falling in love. They're not just sitting somewhere waiting in limbo for this old gal to dust off her keyboard and get to work! I'll let you know when I finish and you can buy it and stroll down main street with the rest of them.
I'll also let you know when I'm rich and famous.
"What do you do?" people would ask. "I write". "Have you been published?" "Well....only my blogs". "Do people read it?" "Oh yes, my post on Strawberry Santas got over 20,000 pageviews". Now, that revelation embarrassed me. 20,000 people read a post about something that wasn't even my idea. It was the least fine tuned blog I ever wrote - just someone else's recipe and someone else's photo and probably took me ten minutes to write. The only reason it got so many page views was that everyone wanted the recipe. Was that something to be proud of? Nope!
Then, I was chatting on Facebook with an old high school friend - not in the age sense of "old" - we both know we're young at heart anyway, don't we Dr. Taylor? Dr. Taylor is a college professor and was gracious enough to compliment me on my writing style. I told him about my book and he encouraged me to get back to work on it! Sometimes all it takes is a few words of encouragement to get you back on track. I'm not saying that I don't get encouragement from other people - Henry especially is my biggest fan. He loves to read what I write - but he loves me so of course he would.
But here we are! I won't be doing much blog writing any time soon. My characters have come to life again. They're riding bicycles down main street, going to church, planting their gardens and falling in love. They're not just sitting somewhere waiting in limbo for this old gal to dust off her keyboard and get to work! I'll let you know when I finish and you can buy it and stroll down main street with the rest of them.
I'll also let you know when I'm rich and famous.
