The Year of the Writer

When I was in 6th grade my teacher told me that I wrote an excellent poem far above my grade level. It rhymed, it made sense, it was even kinda funny. The wonderful thing about that poem was that I had never written one before, and It was perfected in under ten minutes.

Since then I thought myself a brilliant writer. It was the first time anyone had ever told me that. A few years had past before anyone had complimented me on my writing skills again, so I started to think less of it.

My senior year had come around and my english teacher was thrilled with my college essay. She told me I “got the stuff.” This wasn’t the moment I decided to write a book though, that moment was long before. I would stay up countless hours to write drafts of novels that were never completed. Ideas that were lost on scattered pages and on old computers that were never backed up. The only completed book that I ever wrote was in middle school, and I couldn’t even tell you where that hunk of printer paper is today.

So when I got back into reading for fun, sometime in-between the last Twilight book and The Hunger Games, I told myself that I can do this. I’m smart, I’m imaginative, and I “got the stuff.”

The problem was that I never found my idea, there was no spark to light the fire, I didn’t have that best selling bombshell. Despite my road bumps, I never gave up. After years of internal torture I finally may have something worth a chapter 2.

I will probably start posting snippets of it, asking for feed back. I don’t wan’t to continue a dead beat story.

However, I want to be honest with you. I have been scared of this book. I have sat there for hours staring at my finished prologue, worrying about moving forward. I have deliberately ignored the file on my desktop labeled “Dystopian Novel” since before finals week. What If It turns out that this idea is no good, and I’ve let even more of my time decay? What If it’s a great idea, but I’m not skilled enough to carry it out?

I think about the storyline constantly, playing around with it in my head. I just fear the pen and paper. I worry that I’ll take a wrong turn and become so discouraged that i’ll stop.

And I don’t want to stop.

This is why I have marked 2015 as “The Year of the Writer.” As my greatest and foremost important new years resolution, I vow to leave all my fears about this book behind and to jump into it with everything that I have.

This is it. I’m all in.