The struggle is real, people!

So, I have always had this stupid dream of writing and publishing a book one day. I always get so annoyed with myself when I read about a 10-year-old who actually published and I think, “If he/she can do it, then why can’t I?”

I decided it was time to take action and I did this online course two months ago about the writing process and how to write a book with the end goal of it one day being published.

Turns out I was doing it all wrong all these years. The first thing is to have an idea. Second, you should sit down and write the draft from start to finish without correcting yourself or telling anyone else about your idea. Only when you have a draft, you can start telling people about your idea, start editing and rewriting.

But the thing is, I now know what to do and yet I still cannot get myself to sit down and finish the darn thing!

I had this idea of writing a story/book about the relationship about a woman and her pet dog. And someone told me that “hey, that could actually work very well as a children’s story book series!” “And I thought, yeah, why not?”

Well, when I actually tried to morph the story into a children’s book, I ran into a few problems.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when writing a story is who is your target audience? Are you writing for children or for adults? Are you writing a Christian-based story or fantasy erotica?

The more I tried to write my story for children, the more I struggled. Whoever thinks writing for kids is easy, is an idiot!

I also ended up having problems about the more technical stuff like making the distinction between me the writer, the story teller and point of view. It turns out you cannot really write a children’s book and there is no dialogue! But the point of my book idea is to show that even when you do not speak each other’s languages, you are from different species, you can still end up being best friends!

It gets a bit complicated (especially for kids) when you have the person and dog talking, but they are not really talking to each other but commenting on what the other says, thinks, does.

Also it has been two months since the writing course and I haven’t been writing. I tell myself it is because I have a really ancient computer and I’m afraid the thing will blow up and take all my work with it. But actually, I have been distracted by other things: I’m trying to finish crocheting leg warmers, I want to make bunny bags for my nieces, I should really be playing my violin again (but first it must get fixed), sometime in the near future my car needs to get a service before the 2-year service expires…

But mostly I have been distracted by this game I have been playing on my phone called Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. Yes, it is a bit stupid, because technically the producers are just trying to get you to spend money on virtual shit. But, I am secretly proud of myself with the fact that I have been playing for almost two months, my character is in her third year, has 10 friends, two pets (a frog named Prince and a cat I call Moo) and four creatures to take care of… and I haven’t spent a cent! Turns out if you play a “little” every day every week the game rewards you with “free” rewards.

But seriously though, I know I am just bullshitting myself. All these years I have convinced myself I could not finish my book because I am afraid. Afraid of failure, afraid of exposing myself to the world and making an arse of myself, blah blah blah… The thing that is keeping myself from fulfilling my dream is… ME!