Jen's Journal

What writer hasn’t dreamed of writing and publishing a book one day?

I had the dream, I had the ability. There was just one thing missing. I wasn’t writing the book.

My last semester of college I took a novel writing class and thought this was the first step to finally start writing. The first day of class we were asked two questions, do you have a story worth telling? And, do you know how to tell a story?

I have plenty of ideas worth sharing, but I wasn’t even attempting to tell the story.

A few months go by and I’m bored out of my mind because we can’t leave the house; so, I start looking up challenges and prompts to get back to writing.

One of the challenges was to write in a journal for 14 days and start with the phrase, “today I noticed…”

I tried it and after the fifth day I still could not get anything significant down on the page. But I kept writing, and finally, it clicked.

This passage is from the last day of the challenge:

I think the reason I haven’t been writing is that I’m afraid of what will happen once I start remembering my childhood. It wasn’t horrible, but there are certain things I’ve suppressed that I didn’t even know still resided in my mind somewhere. There’s also the fact that I don’t want to write just another cliché book. I think I can write something really good, I just have to get over myself and write. Not in any order or anything, just write. Even if it’s just one page a day, which I know for serious writers this is tragic, but sometimes that’s all I can manage.

The passage continues but rambles on about redundant things, and that is okay!

If you don’t like the quality of your work, that’s what revision is for!

Once I realized why I was having trouble writing, the rest came easy. Now I’m working on a story that’s 27,919 words (and counting!).

Stephen King suggested the time frame for writing a first draft should take no longer than three months. He said if it takes you longer than that you tend to loose interest in writing it. So I calculated this (please tell me if I’m wrong) and if I write about two and a half pages every day I’ll reach 225 pages in 90 days (three months).

The process to get here was filled with very bad writing and insecurity, but at least I’m writing. I hope this helps those struggling with writers block. If you don’t even know where to start, start with a prompt. Those will always be helpful 🙂