What is this Blog About?

If you've ever thought about writing a novel, you've probably wondered how it's done.  Where do you start?  How do you brainstorm an idea into a workable story?  How do you get past writer's block?  How do you develop a character into a believable fictional person?  It can all seem very daunting, and keeps many people from ever starting the process.

I discovered a love of writing from a very young age.  Although writing has always been a part of my life, the writing of short stories and novels stopped between my high school years and my forties.  I don't quite know why.  Maybe it was the busy nature of life.  Maybe it was a fear of failure, or a fear of success.  Maybe it was imposter syndrome, or something else.  Regardless, I've decided to put up a fight this year, and work my way through a novel from beginning to end.  If you'll follow along here and on my YouTube Channel, you can take the journey with me.

Over the weeks and months to come, I'm going to be doing my best to give you a front row seat to my novel writing process and experience.  I don't plan to sugar-coat things, or clean up my mistakes.  You will see every spelling and grammar error, every bad line of dialogue, every predictable plot point, etc.  Why would I do that?  Because, and I've heard this directly from more than a few writers, that's all part of the process.  Very few (if any) writers plop a plop a perfectly written first draft out, and I can tell you from my limited experience so far, I won't be one of them... and I'm not going to pretend that I am.

It's my hope that by giving you a virtual seat on my shoulder as I write my stories, you'll come away realizing that you probably have within you what it takes to write a novel.  You'll be able to see early drafts of scenes and chapters in my book, probably shaking your head or laughing at how terrible some of it is... and thinking "I can do better than that..."  (And if that's the thought you have, I really hope you'll be inspired to take action and start writing your own stories.)

In other words, I'm hoping that my struggle to create a readable, enjoyable novel inspires you to start your own novel, and that my failures and mis-steps in some way help you to avoid the same problems (or work around them when you have them).