I’m a writer without a book.
I’ve been ‘writing’ scenes, plots, characters, and settings in my head
for over 5 years, and my goal for this year is to finally put them down on
paper. It’s so easy to get lost in
google with story structures, checklists, character development sheets, and
conflicting advice on how to start. I am
an over planner by nature; I have post-its, notebooks, and word documents full
of ideas, lists, and plot mapping… but no book.
I’ve realized the only way to get a book done is to write, just start
writing. It doesn’t have to be perfect
in the first draft, it doesn’t need to go in order, it doesn’t matter that I
don’t know the names, name meanings, and eye color of every character; all of
that can come later. But it needs to
start somewhere, and today it starts with ….
“He walked into the library, at least, the room that had
‘Library’ wrote on the door with faded stick-on letters. There were not rows of neatly lined
books. There were not comfy chairs in
quiet, hidden corners. All of the
donated books were piled on several large tables lined together along the back
wall.”
There it is, my first few sentences. I don’t know ‘his’ name yet, but at least it’s
a start.
