You Gotta Fight For Your Write

My life, to put it bluntly, has been a series of unfinished projects; I’m a person of great ideas but lousy follow-through. I’ve started poems, an opera, stage plays, a musical, and countless professional articles on teaching, plus a book to be titled The Young Band Director’s Survival Guide. I began each with furious creative energy, only to have it fizzle out and fade into oblivion. On the positive side, however, I did actually compose enough original music for two recitals in college. After losing interest in completing my last poem over two years ago, I figured I meant to solely interpret and enjoy the creative works of others. I was wrong.
Last March, while languishing in Study Hall, where I baby sat over sixty students in the cafeteria, I had the idea for a novel. The genre is young adult fantasy in the vein of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, but the main character is a girl named Elizabeth. She lives in Boston with her Grandpa, who is a professional jazz musician. He can’t get gigs because of the economy, so he plays in the Greenline subway and makes Elizabeth come along and make “poor me” faces, so the passersby will give more money. She is also a terrible band student. A quick synopsis of the plot: she will save two worlds as the last Trumpeter, a long-lost guild of heroes. There is of course, a terrible villain, a series of side plots, etc. I have the ending sketched, and seven chapters completed for my first draft. Whether I eventually get published or not, I know this time I will finish what I started. I write 500 – 600 words daily, plus editing. And now I must leave to do my “real” job.