Saturday, September 03, 2005
I'm getting more and more shocks in concern to this writing thing everyday. I awoke with a flash of inspiration for a...FANTASY NOVEL(set in historic times of course). I had this picture in my mind of this female warrior holding a sword and a crossbow, as well as a dark, shaggy man who was a shape-shifter. The time was vaguely Viking era/Dark Ages, but I was so shocked! I can count on one hand how many fantasy novels I've read(I see vampires and their ilk as paranormal or supernatural fiction) and I've always shuddered at the thought of them because 1) they seemed v. weird 2) their fans were obsessed and weird. But then I recall how weird and obsessed I am over Buffy, so I have no reason to talk. *G* But it's so fricking odd how things are progressing. Here I am, loly-gaggling about, full of assumptions that I am going to write historical romances when my true callings keep lunging out at me from dark corners.
But here I am, visiting this Romantic SF/F website, The Historical Novelist Society, and Mystery Writers of America. It's scary and strange and appallingly peaceful to be doing this, that my old self tries to lurk in the background, wondering when the bad stuff is going to happen to me again. But I shook that specter off, especially when I made the decision to freelance. I had shied away from freelancing a few years ago because I was afraid to do it, assuming that I hadn't the talent or the expertise to do it, or that the chances of me edging out the competition were slim to none. I realized that my constant grumblings about never having any money were my own fault because I was using getting published(in the romance genre) as a sort of salvation, waiting for something spectacular to write itself and sell so that I wouldn't be poor anymore. I was being passive and massively foolish. If I want to make money writing, not just fiction writing, I need to take a stand and write anything I can, when I can. Burying my nose in a book, while is helpful when it comes to learning to write, doesn't actually put the words down on a page, nor does it put money in a bank account.
I think the coolest thing, after being a fiction author, is to be a travel writer. I would LOVE to be able to travel and make money writing about it. But it doesn't drop from the sky when someone has an acute lack of funds and no writing credits to their name. So I am forcing myself to start
small, heck, to at least start, in order to achieve my dreams and goals. I'm only twenty-one, as much as I harp that I am old or cringe when I notice how many years have passed between today and my HS graduation, or have twinges of inadequacy when ignorant people(including relatives) ask me why I'm not going to college, my life has just begun. If I sit back, complaining and scowling because things aren't going the way I want them to go, it's really mostly my fault because I'm doing nothing to move forward, to achieve anything outside of my normal daily(comfortable) patterns. And heck, using the fact that I've never travelled to the places I set my books in is a feeble excuse since I recently read an article in which Diana Gabaldon stated that she had never even been to Scotland when she wrote Outlander. So I'm moving forward, making plans and brewing dreams--achievable dreams that can be accomplished for this day, and are building blocks for accomplishments of the future.
i can be. anything.
3.9.05
