Having read a number of threads over the past week, I feel like I am the only person on WF that isn't a serious/dedicated writer. Any total amateurs out there? I've wanted to be a fiction writer since I was about four years old - when I started copying out the stories from books I had into notebooks - and now I'm a stay-at-home mom of three little boys and there are plenty of days when my brain and fingers ache to put words on a page and there simply isn't time (or energy...or battery power...or a babysitter). I really think I've got a novel in me, and maybe it'll take a couple more decades for it to surface, but I'd like to believe that there are other moms out there that want to write as badly as I do that can commiserate.
I'm not a mom, but my own Mom wanted very badly to be a writer. She talked about it a lot. I'm not sure if she ever figured out how to go about it and I can't ask her now. She's rarely awake these days and when she is, she says very little. We've never found anything except some really early stuff that never went very far. So, I can't commiserate, but I can tell you one thing: Don't let your life go by without doing something about it. You may not think you have the time, but it's there somewhere and it's up to you to find it. Even if it's only fifteen or twenty minutes per day. You could get up a bit earlier than usual or go to bed a later than usual. The time is there; you just need to commit to it. Don't end up like my Mom, okay? If you ache that much to write, you owe it to yourself to do so.
What "road" was she on? Maybe it would hearten her to know that someone finds it inspiring or useful. Personally, I've read a few of my mom's story ideas and been absolutely enthralled with them.
I only became a writer when that story did indeed decide to surface a couple years ago. Before that I just daydreamed of writing travel memoirs now and again but never wrote anything but term papers, policies and training materials.
I'm a single father of 10 (employees) in a manufacturing shop. I've just always enjoyed telling stories; most of the sales I make are using improvised tales and I really enjoy writing them down.
I don't think the mentality ever truly goes away for most of us, cause even with my work being published in little publications i still think i'm unpublished but many of my friends think i'm a Writing Jesus when i know there's people who can write circles around me. I do it for the fun of course and the hope of enjoyment for other people, but i think i'll always be an amateur,published with millions of books sold or not.
I'm not a mom, obviously, but I am a rank amateur. I've always wanted to write, but never actually managed it. I'm trying now to figure out how to fit it into my life, and get it done. Or to find out that I don't have what it takes...
I'm a total amateur, though not a mother. I write non-fiction for a living but it's a whole different ballgame. Until I finished my second draft this week, only two of my friends knew I was writing. I still haven't told most people - just put a celebratory status on Facebook which a bunch of people saw and commented on. I always feel kind of embarrassed, especially when they ask what the book is about (I think romance sounds so cheesy) but if I want to be taken seriously as a writer, I can't be ashamed of it.
I'm a mother of one with one on the way. I work from home, so I consider myself a stay-at-home-mom. I've been writing avidly since I was 11, but have nothing published to show for it yet, so I consider myself an amateur. Yep. This is me too. Certain family members have been waiting for me to "actually do something" with my writing for years, and when they ask me what I'm working on I feel awkward, depending on who the person is. It feels cheesy, or cliche, or something.
So long as you write, you're a writer, and it doesn't matter how long it takes; Tolkien's stories were hastily scribbled on the back of envelopes and scraps of paper whenever he had a spare minute. Even if you write a sentence a day, there's a chance it'll get finished. It's when you stop there's a problem.
Not a mom or a dad, so I'm not sure if this suggestion will help. Have you tried writing a story with pen and paper? I think it will help get your creative juices rolling. You can take pen and paper anywhere so you don't have to be bolted down in an office chair. Also, you don't have to wait for paper to boot-up, load some programs, ask if you want to update to Windows 10, remind you that your laptop is vulnerable to diseases and digital germs, although paper has its own disadvantages, which is not able to be backed up. I answered that worry by taking digital photos of the pages I had written.
Carbon copy? You could do all your writing on one of those pads then stick the copies into a special drawer!
Hehe, too much work, I think, since you have to put a little force to make sure it copies. Also, I write with a disposable fountain pain, so any pressure might bleed through the other page. But never say never, they say. I take a photo with my phone so it's backed up just in case the cat pees on my manuscript.
I think it would probably be easier to cope with the cat pee smell than trust my phone for that, but one man's pain is another's pleasure, etc.
I'm not a mother but I certainly hope to one day give birth to a published novel..... I actually have all the time in the world (I have a job that's not demanding, offering hours of spare time, and then spare time after clocking out) and yet it took me a year to write a novel I'm not happy with, and to come up with an outline for a different story I AM happy with and yet now need to suck it up and start writing it, and now to consider to write up short stories to practice my characterization while attempting to put something on the 'published' pile. I've never truly accomplished anything in my life but at the very least I want to publish the characters and settings I created and fell in love with (call me arrogant, but yes, I am passionate about these stories I've designed and want to write). Don't let your characters grow old in your mind and fade away.
