Writing

One of my favorite authors is Shannon Hale (her best book so far: The Princess Academy).. so I read a bit of her blog, especially the bit where she interviewed another of my favorite authors, Megan Whalen Turner. Both are stay-at-home moms, both absolutely amazing and entertaining...
So, anyway, it inspired me. I am re-dedicating myself to my longtime dream of becoming a writer. Like FOR REAL. Not just as a hobby. I'm going to be published.
Which means TONS of writing. In the last week, I've written 15 pages of draft and kept a few lines more than one page. 10,000 words and I've kept 500. And that's just the first draft, which I know will need to be completely rewritten once I'm done with it.
But I'm excited. Just in the last week, I've improved my writing already... I still need lots of work, but I believe it is possible (and that belief is a HUGE hurdle to get over, so I'm excited to be beyond it...at least for today! I'm sure self-doubt will rear its head, ready for battle over and over again).
I know it's possible because I intented to just work on an outline and then write my novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month: November--you write a 50,000 word novel in just one month), but I couldn't stop myself from actually writing the story. It was itching to be told. Insisting. Demanding.
And that is, I believe, the key to becoming a published author, to slugging through the hard days and the I-hate-this-story days and all that.

Goals

My goals:
1. create a list of 100 things I'd like to do in my life (aka, a bucket list)
2. finish writing the CleanDance book
3. write a novel (http://www.nanowrimo.org/)
4. write 800 words a day
5. run a marathon in February
...
yeah, just stuff like that...
(Okay, I had to come up with SOMETHING for a blog post!)