Well, okay not THE first, but the first to be published. Over the years I've begun several, yes a half a dozen or so. As I was telling my closest confidant, when I was younger, the stories would just flow, but by the time I really wanted to sit down and write again, work, kids, just the myriad of life, seemed to be a consistent and constant road block to the creative connections in my mind. After leaving engineering in 2021, 53 years young, I just couldn't turn it on. I had so many wonderful stories in my head in my youth, yet now I had just this one novel in my head. I just couldn't get the words to flow out from gray matter to page. It was in leaps and brick walls. Finally the first three chapters came out in a burst and then the ending. It was the middle that has taken so long.
Truth be told, it's also that my mind would come up with other possible stories and I have taken the time to write outlines, beginnings or ends, each time. This wasn't unusual when I was younger. I always had one book I was working on, but other ideas and concepts would come to mind and I would jot them down, tossing them in the trash eventually. I had thought maybe it was unusual, until I had seen an interview with Stephen King where he said he would have these awful dreams and wake up, jot down all the details he could remember, and this was often where his stories and books began. He also said he slept with a nightlight, which I still find strange. I prefer it pitch dark. But I realized in that moment I had to try writing again. Where his mind saw only darkness and needed light, mine saw only light and needed the dark.
Following that, a previous effort was 8 chapters, which was abandoned for the aforementioned trials and tribulations of life. An ex boyfriend recently asked about that novel. He was one of the people to have read the 8 chapters. It had been posted online, much like a Dickens novel was printed in a newspaper, one chapter at a time. I still imagine there was some charm in a weekly chapter in the Sunday pages of local newspapers. When I revisited it, what surprised me was all the readers had read every chapter, even those that had come after I had abandoned it. It felt like a sign.
The main issue now is the correct title for the new novel, and as usual I've hit another mental road block. The working title is no longer a viable title and probably doesn't reflect the contents as well as, well, hopefully the final title does. The cover is also a work in progress. There's really a lot more than just writing that goes into this.
Anyway, just wanted to share and hopefully remind everyone to get #motivated to #achieveyourdreams. There's been plenty of naysayers along the way. There's always at least one, but one of my favorite sayings is "It's never too late to become who you are meant to be."
Dream to Achieve. Achieve to Dream.
#happythursday Have a wonderful and blessed day!!
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