"if you really want this, it will happen"

The title of this post comes courtesy of Owen in the senior year season of Felicity. The two of them are going around to show their artwork to galleries and are getting rejected without even having their work looked at. Felicity is starting to get a little worried since it seems that everyone else has a career path and a plan of what to do next.

So Owen tells her that she has talent and that it will happen. You just have to want it and work after it. And it'll be a struggle. There aren't really any degrees you can get that says you're a writer. Granted, you can take creative writing classes or major in creative writing (senior year in high school that's what I listed as my applied for degree...I ended up changing it the summer before freshman year for the same reason: I wanted something with a possible career. And I really do nothing related to economics at the moment).

And it's the same with writing. Felicity's mother was taking writing classes and then decided to get into real estate because writing wasn't realistic, she said. And it may not be.

But earlier today I got to thinking about it, when I'm frantically writing my word count for the day and my inner editor is sitting there staring at the screen thinking...wow...this isn't good. So I started thinking this isn't good. But you know what? I love writing. I love creating worlds and characters, these story lines that take on a life of their own and go in directions I didn't think of.

And here's the other great thing about ignoring the editor. I'm working on the second part of a series I have in mind, and it's flowing. I'm just trying to get my count down and the story is sort of writing itself, for now anyway. But the first book in the series took awhile. I tried plotting it out in my head and then with each page I wrote, I wanted to know what the scene ten or fifteen pages later was going to be. And of course I had to edit everything I wrote and get stuck on that part, forgetting what was coming up. That kind of hinders the writing of the story, I've noticed.

A colleague corrected me the other day when she asked how the writing was going with the Bali novel (which I'm putting aside for awhile until I can get to Bali...seeing as how I've been to Java and Sumatra, but not quite Bali). I told her I'd let her know if I ever get published and she smiled and said "when you get published."

While positive thoughts won't necessarily get me published, if I just keep writing I'll improve my writing and improve my chances of seeing "this" happen. And that's something to look forward to, and knowing the challenges will make it sweeter.

current word count: 7510