The Beauty of Writing...

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a writer. As a little girl I wrote a ton of stories and even won writing contests that allowed me to go to my school district’s writing convention. I can thank my mom for my love of storytelling since she was the one that got me hooked on books in the first place. She read to me often as a baby and a toddler and indulged my need to spend time in the library picking out books. I read just about everything I could get my hands on, including the cereal boxes during breakfast and while most of what I read was fun and not all that memorable (I don’t think I could tell you the full plot of a Babysitter’s Club book), it wasn’t until I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson at around the age of 7 that I really understood the true beauty and meaning of being a writer.

Bridge to Terabithia was the first book that stuck with me and I’m not just talking about the plot and the characters, but also the feelings I had while reading the book. It was the first book that truly touched me and brought me to tears. Anyone who has ever read the book (or seen the movie that came out in the last decade) knows the emotional rollercoaster this book takes you on and how it makes you really think about life. Was it too much for me to read at such a young age? Maybe, but I’m glad I did. Reading that book changed how I look at my writing. I know now that I need to evoke emotions and I need to make my readers think. That’s not to say that frivolous and fun aren’t great things to read and that I don’t absolutely love books that represent those things, but they aren’t the ones that stick with me years later.

I want people to get teary eyed or feel an ache in their chest when they read something I’ve written. I want them to remember my characters and their heartache or happiness or the connection that they felt with them whenever they think of the great books they have read. But I also want my books to be fun, an escape from reality even if the book represents something very real. These goals aren’t easy to reach and out of the thousands of books that I’ve read throughout the last 30 years, there are not many that have truly gripped me the way that Bridge to Terabithia did when I was young (and again when I re-read it in my twenties). Even though I couldn’t remember the name of Bridge to Terabithia nearly 2 decades after I first read it, I still remembered what happened and how it made me feel and that is exactly what I want to see happen with my own work someday.

February Goals
Read 3000 pages
Write 1000 words a day
Workout 3 hours a week

All goals are of course at least that amount. More is always better.

Update for February Goals: So far in February, I have an hour of gym time under my belt, but that week only had 3 days and one of those was Super Bowl Sunday, so I feel like that’s a good start. I’ve also finished 4 books this month for a total of 1321 pages, so also got a good start on that. It’s the writing that I have a feeling is going to be tricky. I cannot seem to focus on just one project. I still need to finish revising Genevieve, which now has a tentative name of Revelations, and I need to finish the sero draft of Caitlin, which also has a tentative name of Awakening. But I am being haunted by contemporary romance ideas and they are leaving me scatterbrained and overwhelmed. Normally I would work on outlining the CRs while writing or revising one of the others, but I just stare at the computer or my notebook unable to concentrate and eventually I move on to something easier like reading or watching TV. That’s been happening since the middle of last month and I really need to figure out a way around the obstacle or I may never write again.