The hardest thing about writing a novel is actually building up the nerve to start putting words on paper. I always have a difficult time starting a new project. I’ve been trying to re-start a novel here for the past two weeks, and I’ve found myself doing everything but working on the novel. I’ve jotted down some notes and I’ve tweaked the outline, but I haven’t come close to typing one word of the manuscript.
Novels are hard work. Do you know how hard it is to string together 60,000 words in a coherent manner? Think about it – you have to be either really confident or really crazy to commit yourself to sweating out 250 pages of a manuscript that may never get published. And even if it does get published, someone has to be willing to buy it and read it. Who would willing put themselves through torture like that?
The sad thing is, I’m not even spending my “free” time doing something constructive. More than anything, I find myself typing variations of my name and my book’s title in Google, MSN, and Yahoo searches. It got so bad, I even did a search on seldom-used Alta-Vista. Have any of you even heard of Alta-Vista before?
Like I said, you’ve got to be either really confident or really crazy to get into the writing business. Something tells me that I don’t fall into the Confident Category.
Are you kidding. I wore out HotBot, My Excite, Dog Pile, Ask Jeeves, Northern Light, and some others that don’t even exist anymore. I know every Don Tate in the country, where they work and what college they went to. I can relate. Just wait until you discover Amazon rankings.
See…that’s my problem with even attempting a novel. I start picture books I can’t finish because I lose interest. I have such a short attention span!
Self Googling? Everybody does it…um…I think. Still wondering what I’ll do when I get published. My name comes up zillions of pages behind the Rain Man.
Try typing the phone book until a first line comes to you. It will. I promise. It’s a mental self-defense system. Good luck!