Life happening whilst other plans are made.

John Lennon. Paraphrased. But still.

I am 35 years old. I have wanted to be a writer since I was eleven. I am approaching the 10,000 hour mark talked about in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers”.  What good has this done me so far?

Zip.

I took the advice of Hemmingway about not going to college and just writing. I didn’t want student loans to have to pay back, I didn’t want a 9-5 grind job, I didn’t want to waste 4 years or more writing about stuff I didn’t care about. So I avoided college and just wrote.

I finished my first book when I was 26. It took eight years all told to write, but the first draft was really crap, and I had to start it fresh from the beginning at least once. When I started writing it, I did not know about Strunk & White, I did not know about the Chicago Manual of Style, I did not know about the Writer’s Market. I discovered them shortly after my first draft, and subsequently edited and repaired the thing as I went along. The finished product needs another go-through, don’t get me wrong, but I think the story and characters have merit. The writing’s not amazing, but it’s not trash.

I tried to shop it around to editors, and started getting back nice notes on my rejection slips before I got impatient and self-published it. The 200 or so people who bought copies from me liked it. My mother had nightmares about the first chapter (yes!). My grampa said he liked it (high praise). My mother’s superviser at work said my secondary character was “so cool”.  A vampire enthusiast said she liked my world the best of all the vampire books she’d read. Someone on Myspace (yes, Myspace) called themselves a “Melody Taylor freak”.  I got fan mail (squee!). The only negative comments I got about it were from two people who wanted to pretend to know more than me and told me they found grammatical errors. (When I asked about where the errors were, I was told “I don’t remember where, exactly.” I think these people didn’t understand that fiction is allowed certain life-like ungrammatical ways of narrating. And felt bad that I had written a book and they had not.)

So I wrote a second book. And a third. I’m now working on a fourth.

Do I have a book deal? No. Am I a journalist, or a proofreader, or in the writing business anywhere? No. I am a cook at a nice restaurant in a small town.

I hated my second book. It showed. Lord, did it show. I loved my third book, which was a sequel to the self-published book, but I realized I didn’t want to keep self-publishing, so a sequel to a self-published book was a waste of time. I stopped 3/4 of the way through and started on the book I’m on now. I like the book I’m on now. I think it will be a good one, worth schlepping to publishers. But I wanted this when I was eleven. I was willing to wait. I understood that having a book deal meant having a book, that it wouldn’t happen in a few years. But I am 35. I am four books into what was supposed to be a career by now. I am sad and discouraged. I am tired of waiting. I am tired of working menial jobs with no respect for shit pay so I can work on my art in my extended spare time.

I thought that if I ever realized that skipping college was a bad idea, I could go back and enroll. But I got married. My husband went to college. He got a job doing something he likes and is good at. Now we have tons of student loans, and me going to school just isn’t going to happen for a few years at least. No one wants to hire me for any sort of writing job without a degree. It will be another year or more before my newest novel is finished, and there is no guarantee anyone will publish it.

I am feeling a little down right now. I thought about not posting this, but feeling discouraged about your work is part of being an artist. It would be dishonest of me to pretend it never happens, that I’m not going through a bout of it. I have gone through it before. I have bounced back before. I don’t feel like I will bounce back from this, but then, I never have felt that I would.

I’ve also not been writing much. I have definitely, DEFINITELY noticed that when I skip writing, I get depressed.

I’m not saying “Oh, this will pass, haha!” I’m saying, “I hurt right now, and though I do not believe it, I think it will not be permanent.”

I’ll get back on track with my novel and let you know how I’m faring. Tomorrow’s goal: FUCKING WRITE.