What the hell am I supposed to write about?

Who would have thought that being a writer would require so much writing? If you use that sentence, please feel free to quote me! I actually said those words to my mother a couple of months ago while she was helping me work on my website. (Thank you Mama! You are appreciated.)

I mean, I strung together over 90,000 words for the first novel in a nine book series. I was nearly finished with the second book. (Another 70,000 plus words at the time.) And yet, I had to write some more.

Not the creative, let it flow type of words, but I had to figure out what to write in this blog, which we appropriately named Ramblings, for reasons that are likely obvious by now. Every page on the site needed more words. Then there’s the newsletter (Happenings) and email and social media.

Oh, and let’s not forget the book blurb. It was surprisingly difficult to try to summarize this massive collection of words into a few short paragraphs to hopefully entice you to want to pick it up. (Did it work?)

Honestly, I’m grateful that my super power is word play. (That’s another quotable nugget if you want to use it LOL.) Since you can’t actually hear my voice, I’ll let you know that I love sarcasm. I believe it is my first language. So please read these words with that in mind.

Seriously, though, when I dreamed of being an author as a child, I figured you just create the story in your head and watch it flow out on the paper in front of you, like magic. Times have changed, and now I type it all out on an excessively loud keyboard. When I’m in the zone it sounds like the stampede scene from The Lion King. (Let’s take a moment of silence to remember Mufasa.)

Fun fact, that is my favorite movie/cartoon of all time. I know I’m being extra random right now, but I thought you should know that. Back to the topic at hand…

Current technological advances make the editing or changing one’s mind much simpler than rewriting an absurd amount of words. Not to mention the time I save by being able to copy, paste, delete, or move things around however I see fit at the moment.

The work doesn’t even really start until after you’ve finished the first draft. Oh, the dreams I had of what it would be like. I’d just churn out my stories and they would magically be swooped up by hordes of editors and agents who would fight over the chance to put their names behind the greatest novels of my generation.

Uhm, no. The writing world has changed a great deal with technology and the utilization of the interwebs. Thankfully, I am able to use that to my advantage as far as choosing to self-publish. However, that brings its own challenges that we won’t even get into right now (partially because I’m still learning).

There’s editing. So. Much. Editing. I have read this story more times than I can count. And every time I think I have some genius idea I want to add, so I add it in, then rediscover it’s already there a few paragraphs or a page later. Then I have to go undo everything I just did. I finally sent it off to fresh eyes because I was going cross-eyed.

Now that it’s been edited, a few times over, it’s in the final stages of preparation to be released. And do you know what that means? If you guessed there’s even more to write, you’d be correct. There’s more to write. More social media, emails, blog posts, and other writing. So if you can think of anything you’d like to see me write about, please do share!

Also, I think I should share that I am actually loving every step of this process. I have learned and grown beyond measure and am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to see my dreams come to life. I hope you enjoy this journey with me.

Are you doing your dream job? (What is/was your dream job?)