An Author I Must Become

Have you ever had a burning desire to do something? One that nags at you week after week, month after month? There is a story in my head. It’s been there for years. It’s grown, fermented, tugging at my soul as it begs for release. Part of the story has come out. I completed some 53,000 words in the National Novel Writing Month Contest. It was cathartic to let it come out, though it didn’t go as easily as I had imagined it should. I struggled with parts and characters I never thought about screamed for me to make them relevant. So now I sit with this manuscript, that is in desperate need of major work, and I struggle to know where to go next.

“You’ve written that much. Surely the rest will be easy,” I hear people trying to be supportive say. Writing is never easy. Never was easy. I was a math and science man. I loved reading but not so much writing. I wrote poetry in High School. Mostly stuff that rhymed and could easily slide into songs that I listened to at the time. I could do math and science in my sleep it came so easy. Public speaking was right up there with writing. I am analytical. I am structured and organized. I think methodically.

I AM NOT A WRITER!

Yet here I sit with this story, and others but the intensity is not so strong, trying to decide what to do with it. Where to go. My adult life became writing (though not books or magazines) and public speaking. The two things I hated in High School. Science has turned into medicine as I became an EMT and went on to get my RN. Math… that comes out in budgeting and other simple calculations for work. Where did I go wrong?

So what is this book about? What could be so important that it hurts my soul that it is not written? Why do I fear it so? Why do I not just write more? Way to many questions and not enough answers.

It is time. An author I must become. Even if it kills me.