An Aspiring Writer?

Over the years many people have urged me to write a book.  I love to write and have sometimes daydreamed about being a best selling or even a not so best selling author but I lack the discipline to spend 8 hours a day in isolation as I am a people person and most certainly not a homebody hunched at a computer.  Picture this if you will.  I am sitting at my laptop but suddenly I am distracted from my stream of writing by the squawking of a blue jay outside my window.  I glance up and spot a flash of brilliant orange in the evergreen tree.  That has to be a Baltimore Oriole, one of my favourite birds so I jump up and go outside to better observe this beautiful bird. I notice the geraniums in my window box need deadheading and the petunias are looking a little drowsy and are in need of water.  I then check my cell phone to ensure that it is still holding its charge.  Am I hoping that someone will call or text to distract me from my writing?  Do you see what I mean?

It takes much discipline to be a writer.  I have been writing my memoirs at the rate of two pages a day a couple of times a month (or less) so I can’t imagine sitting down to write an entire novel, chapter after chapter, hour after hour, day after day.

It also takes quite some planning to write a novel; to create characters, describe their appearance, give them personalities.  I suppose the easiest method is to use the characteristics of people I know for my fictional characters.  I would hope though that the people in my life do not recognize themselves in my novel, or on second thought it may not be such a bad thing; to see themselves as someone else sees them.  This could lead to some self-realization for them. 

“Write about what you know” is the advise other authors offer.  If not, a lot of research is required.  One cannot write a credible fiction without researching facts and weaving them into the plot.  Consider the research done for Dan Brown’s novels, The “Da Vinci Code”, “Angels and Demons” as well as his latest Robert Langdon thriller, “The Lost Symbol”.  His passion for the meaning of symbols and codes compelled him and his wife to look into the cryptic world of secret messages and their research took years.

Locale may be another factor in creating an interesting novel.  I thoroughly enjoy novels that have the main character travelling from country to country in places I myself have never been.  If I were to write a novel, the fact that I have done a bit of travelling could provide my characters with a bit of backdrop. 

Gotta go, I think I hear my phone.