Finished! After 2 years, 4 months, 8 days, I have
finally finished my novel, 60,927 words, my first novel in 28 years. (I wrote 3 novels in
the late 80s, and early 90s, but two of my manuscripts are still unpublished. In
addition, I wrote and published 2 short stories and 2 books of poems.)
Even though I feel ecstatic, right now, today, I
still feel like I haven’t accomplished anything, I feel unfinished. I say this
because, in those past 28 years, I have outlined over 40 stories. And in that
time frame I kept saying to myself, I have a job, I’m working so hard that I
didn’t have time to write. I was enjoying life, also considering that I was
married during the 80s and had children who bothered me every minute I wrote
something.
I retired from a major auto company in 2006 and
decided I had to follow my dream of being a writer. In those past 20 or 35,
some odd years, I went to college and studied journalism, and I took a ton of
classes in creative writing. It was time for me to start writing.
I never realized that I am a lazy writer. I enjoyed
life more than I was enjoying writing. My mother had passed away in 2000 and I then
decided that I would write a book of poetry, dedicated to her, “My Mother’s
Garden”. But, it took me 10 years to have it published. Now that I think about
it, I put it together and passed it out to my family and close friends.
The one thing I noticed, while writing this novel, that
at the beginning of January of this year, the feeling came back. Way back when, I was a prolific writer, but
mostly in journalism. However, the dreams of writing a novel flowed through my
mind every second. I wrote because I liked writing, I loved it and found a
passion for writing. That was then…
Even though I wrote 25,000 words starting that first
day in November of 2016, for the start of NaNoWriMo – The National November
Write Month, I just couldn’t put any more words together I had writer’s block.
I couldn’t think of a word to put down on paper, I mean on computer. It just
wasn’t flowing. Then something bit me at the end of January of this year.
On February 1st, I said to myself, “Let’s
do this” and started writing again. At the time, I was at 33,000 words, I did
write a little bit in January. I decided to write at least 1,000 words a day,
my goal. The passion returned and I was feeling great about it, about my
writing, again. With 25 writing days, and a few days of writing over 2,000
words, I finished yesterday, March 7th. I even wrote over 6,000 words
those last 3 days.
I am going to write more this year and I really hope
to start another novel, one that I outlined a couple of years ago. But first, I
really do need to reread my story, edit the story, find someone to read the
story and then find an inexpensive editor to edit the story.
In the meantime, I plan to start, next month, on another
book of poems, my third, and a new short book, a compilation of 50 word stories,
most of them written over the past 2 years. I just hope that passion stays with
me; I have so much more to write…
For now, I have to cut that darn television OFF, and
sit down and write more. I’m going to miss baseball. But, for the rest of this
month I am going to read at least 6 book, that too is a goal for me, to read at
least 25 books this year, 2 books a month, or, now that I think about it, just to nap everyday for the
rest of the March. One way or another I am going to make something out of my
writing life.
