I read somewhere that 81% of Americans feel they have a
book in them – that’s about 200,000,000 aspiring authors in the US. Although I
don’t have any statistics to prove it, I would bet that this propensity is
particularly high among followers of book blogs and readers of self-published
books. I certainly count myself as one of the 81%.
I then found a rough statistic that there are about
200,000 published novelists in the US (both self-published and traditionally
published). That means about .001% of aspiring authors actually sit down and
write a book. That number is staggeringly low. However, I plan to count myself
among them as well, and I am finally doing something about it.
It’s been a long path to finally get to the point where
I was ready to move from one of the 81% to one of the .001%, but at 40 years
old I have worked up the courage and determination to at least give it a try.
And I would like to take you on this journey with me.
If you are like me, I have always been fascinated with
the process of writing. Where do authors get their ideas? How do they start
formulating their stories? Do they outline or just start writing? Did they use
beta readers, editors or proofreaders? How many times did they get rejected
from publishers before getting selecting or deciding to go the self-published
route? How long did it take them to write their book? How did they find the
time to write with so many other priorities competing for their time (full time
jobs, kids, husbands, etc.)?
I finally decided to put the questions aside and try to
find the answers myself through my own personal experience. I was an English
Literature major and Journalism minor in college. I wrote on my school
newspapers from junior high school through college. During school and over the
summers I worked in public relations writing press releases. I held jobs in
magazine publishing, corporate communications and web development, writing and
editing content. Then when I moved into the healthcare industry, I spent a lot
of time writing policies and procedures. So writing isn’t new to me, but
writing fiction and writing at length is.
I always had dreams of writing the Great American Novel,
but I never knew where to start. I would shoot down my own story ideas before I
even let them get off the ground. I knew how hard it was to become a successful
novelist, so I was afraid to even try for fear of failure. I’m not sure if I
finally hit my mid-life crisis, but at the age of 40, I decided to give it a
shot. Maybe I’m old enough now not to really care whether I am successful.
Maybe I’ve just decided that I have to go through the process before I can judge
whether I or not I’d be good at it. Maybe with the advent of self-publishing,
it still gives me a way to get my book out there even if I can’t find a
traditional publisher. In truth, it’s all of those things.
So for all of you aspiring writers out there who aren’t
sure where to start, or what the process of writing looks like, I invite you to
take this journey with me. Over the next however long it takes, I will be
blogging about my experience writing my first novel. Since I am just starting
the process, I can’t even guarantee that I will finish it, but hopefully you
will all help keep me motivated along the way. I’m sure there will be starts
and stops as I deal with competing priorities (I work a very demanding full
time job at one of the largest companies in the world, I have two kids (ages 6
and 8) and a dog, and my husband travels for business 3-4 days a week). But I
think this describes many of us out there – we all lead busy and complex lives,
but it shouldn’t stop us from following our dreams.
Along the way I’d love to hear from you if you have
questions for me, or if you want to share your own experiences, so don’t be shy
about posting comments. In my next post, I’ll tell you about the first steps
that I took to get started.
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