All I Want for Christmas..

.. is for People to Enjoy Reading My Story and…

I am pouring my heart and soul into my latest WIP. I have just finished creating some character profiles which will hopefully lead to some stronger writing but it leaves me wondering… why?

Why am I doing all this?

I am sitting here, at the kitchen table, surrounded by paper and clean laundry waiting to be ironed and I am wondering why. Why am I writing stories? Why am I putting so much work into it? I haven’t written my diary for weeks because I’ve been working on my WIP.

I am excited by my WIP, I think it has real potential. If I can just get it right, I think someone might actually like it.

And then the self-doubt creeps in. Your husband wants to spend time with you, you’re writing when you should be playing with your kids. When this manuscript joins the pile of other rejected manuscripts, you’ll regret all the time you poured into it.

But then I try to remember that every rejection is an opportunity to learn.

But my writing isn’t very good anyway, so why even bother?  No one has said my writing isn’t very good, it’s just that no one has said it’s good either.

My trouble is that the people who are kind enough to read my stories aren’t writers, and aren’t particularly fans of science fiction novels. I know an awful lot of people who are happy to watch sci fi, but reading it takes a little out of the magic, for them. So, finding casual editors or even feedback-ers, is tricky.

Then there’s those pesky other ideas that are vying for attention. In addition to the young adult science fiction novel I’m writing (my work in progress), I also have a middle grade fantasy story in the works. That’s a fairly simple story with princesses and heroes and your token child from our world who has stumbled into theirs. (It could be you, kids! Connect with my protagonist!)

And that’s not even taking into account my day job which is very demanding. It’s not the kind of job where you can just come home and work is done. I do a lot in my own time in the evenings so scraping scraps of time to write is tricky. With a diary and potentially two simultaneous WIPs, it’s getting tricky.

Thus, I have decided, all I want for Christmas is to write a story that people enjoy reading. I want to write a story that gives people a little bit of escapism, a bit of time out, and a bit of excitement. 

Come on, Santa! You can do it!