Anyone who had made any progress at all in the world of writing or publishing can remember back to the early days of fear, indecision, doubt, and waffling back and forth. I certainly do. If I could have pulled it off, I would have gathered a room full of accomplished, published novelists and I would have asked each one of them whether or not they thought I could actually become a published author.
Years went by and I became a published author (not because anyone told me I could do it by the way). I also became a conference and workshop instructor, and an editor, and a novel critique consultant. Then, guess what? I had writers coming up to me asking me whether or not I thought they could actually become a published author.
Interesting, isn’t it?
A commitment to write is a serious and an abiding vocation. It holds the power to order and direct your life. The fact is, if you want it badly enough you will begin to make arrangements to make it happen.
Each novice writer approaches it in a different way. Some young student might stand up on his desk in the high school English department and announce to the whole world that he is going to be a published author. Another hopeful will press in quietly, sometimes losing a job or failing to do the expected in the process of accomplishing the unexpected. But still she presses on. And on.
If you’ve thought once or twice that you might like to write something, then the next week the feeling goes away, let it go. But if you are continually tormented by the idea of writing and actually becoming a writer, and you have become captivated when you write a short story, or the beginning of a novel, now you’re onto something.
It’s time to get serious and arrange your life so that you can spend time reading and writing. (Side note: Try your best not to become overly concerned with unanswerable questions such as “Do I have sufficient talent?” That will never be the right approach.)
You need time. Lots and lots of time. Time to do it wrong. Time to make mistakes. Time to learn. Time to think, muse, and ponder. Searching out your own regular times will become your passion — next to the writing passion, that is.
No one will be beside you forcing you to write. No one will tell you how to set up your schedule. No one will tell you how to say no to lesser things in your life.
Did I mention no one?
If this doesn’t appeal to you, then discover what your true passion is, because becoming a novelist may not be it.
In the final analysis, the decision is yours and yours alone.
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In the six-month writing course that I call the Be A Novelist, Six-Month, Finish-My-Novel Challenge we talk a great deal about what might stand in the way of your novel creation! It will be like looking into a mirror as you see yourself more clearly. This course offers six full months of guidance and instruction. Guaranteed to light a fire under your novel-writing attempts and to launch you into a pattern of consistent writing! Details right here!
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