A Book Thing

I’ve Begun Writing Again

I’ve finally decided that enough is enough. For years I’ve tinkered in jack-of-all-trades fashion. I’m very good at some things and it has been easy to let my dreams be sidetracked following paths of lesser resistance. My writing, has always been one of my most headstrong passions. It steadfastly eludes my comfort zone. Writing is hard, deservedly so, because I expect exceptional quality from the words I write and hold my writing to high judgement.

In December 2006, I began a novel. The book is fantastic. And, over several painstaking months I wrote several hundred words regularly. Then I hit a wall and stopped. I’ve dusted off the cover of that manuscript a handful of time. I clutched it in my hands, held it to my heart, and shuddered in terror.

For long stretches I would stare at the book on the shelf and feel the pinpricks of glass shards within. Broken dreams. Shattered inspirations.

The characters of this book deserve their tale be told and told well. Even in the many months, the years of non-writing I’ve known in my heart that this book is one I must finish. It never crossed my mind to consider abandoning it. It waited, and, when I was ready it would be finished.

But the more I let it languish the further from returning to writing I seemed to get. I built a career around freelance writing, and then, when writing non-fiction and writing for other people became too painful because my own writing could never take priority I turned away from writing roads and into Web design and programming. At least, immersed in code, I didn’t feel like I was betraying my writing. In not writing at all I could at least fool myself into thinking I was choosing to not write rather that being too scared to do so.

But enough is enough. Yesterday, I reached the point where I decided I just won’t accept less any more. I never wanted to be a Web designer. I fell into it, because it was “easy”, it didn’t demand more of myself than I would willingly give. It didn’t require me to bare my heart and soul. Websites are transient and easily changed. A website is always unfinished, even when given over to the client because it is simply an ever evolving version.

A book, THIS BOOK, requires sacrifice. At some point I must decide that I’ve reached the end. In fact, a book must have a beginning, middle, and end which is entirely unlike a website.

But I never wanted to be a Web designer. My dream is to be a novelist. Novelists, write novels.

So, no more not-writing. Today, I began writing again. And, it feels incredible. This book, is so close to finished I can taste the crisp pages and drying ink.

Today, I am a novelist.