Jessica Bayliss
  • Home
  • About
  • Books & Stories
    • BREATHLESS
    • BROKEN CHORDS
    • TEN AFTER CLOSING
    • Anthologies
    • All Books & Stories

Thoughts on the Journey

2/16/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
Today, I stumbled upon this blog post by Anne Allen: "Should You "Send Out" that First Novel? 9 Things to Consider First."  What a great article! 

Reading it now, today, I can see the truth and wisdom in every item. But I will confess, if I'd read it the day I typed "The End" for the first time, I would have hoped this stuff wasn't true or wouldn't be true for me. The excitement that comes with finishing the first big project is just huge. HUGE. Getting to the end is like a double shot of joy after all the work, doubt, and pain -Will I be able to finish it? Will I get bored? Will my umph just dwindle to nothing, and one day, I'll find this file on my hard drive and say 'oh, that was a fun thing while it lasted?'  No wonder so many newbies rush out to share their work.

This process of becoming a writer takes an immense amount of time. I was talking about this with a friend of mine (you know who you are, Ghenet)  after yesterday's Crazy in Love Workshop hosted by the NY chapter of The Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, which was awesome by the way (more on that later). And even though many of us are writers long before we're published authors, I really do mean those words: becoming a writer takes an immense amount of time. Because it's more than just writing (although, don't get me wrong, writing is the most important part of it). So much learning takes place on so many levels from the time we type (or pen) our first words to the point when we are finally published. It all takes forever: those first steps from beginning to the middle phase, what writer and photographer Jodi Kendall calls the nearly-there stage. And, as the excellent faculty at yesterday's conference pointed out, even when you're published, there's a whole new world of learning and firsts to accomplish.

Maybe that's not bad news, but let's face it, it's not exactly heartening either.

Now, after typing "The End" on three novels and six short stories, I can definitely say that whatever spark fueled me through that first book is only bigger. HUGE. So, that's the good news for those of us early on in our writing careers. The passion won't dwindle along the way. It only gets bigger. I love all my projects. Love. Yet my excitement over each new idea is even greater than the last. 

So don't worry. 

It may take a long time, ridiculous amounts of patience, the ability to swallow disappointment; and we may have tons of learning and growing to do before we get there, but if we truly are writers, we've got the journey in us.  It's there already, right now. We just have to walk the path to the end.

2 Comments
Crystal link
2/17/2015 02:03:04 am

Love this! I feel like my journey has already stretched out so long, longer than anticipated for sure, and sometimes that’s very discouraging. A couple weeks ago I read this post by some published author who talked about her LOOOOOONG hard road to getting published. TWO WHOLE YEARS since she first decided to start writing. And I almost wept, lol. I have gone way beyond two years at this point.

Reply
Jessica Bayliss
2/17/2015 05:09:56 am

Me too, Crystal! I started my first book in the summer of 2011. It took 1 year to write that and, because I had so much to learn, it took another two years to edit it up. I cut the time down for my second book. And then cut it even more for my third. I've learned SO much in these years about every aspect of this industry. And I can't thank my friends enough because I learned the most from them and from plain, old-fashioned practice, practice, practice. Imagine how much more we'll have grown a year from now!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe
    Jessica Bayliss Blogs about reading, writing, & other fun stuff

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Allegory EZine News
    Award News
    BREATHLESS
    BROKEN CHORDS
    Contest News
    Craft
    Feedback Mini Series
    Giveaways
    Guest Posts
    Inspiration & Motivation
    It's A Writer Thing
    Latest News
    Live Events
    Pitch Wars
    Release News
    Submission News
    Tech & Gadgets
    TEN AFTER CLOSING
    The Business Side
    THE FIVE SENSES
    There's A Story There
    Utter Randomness
    What I Want Wednesday
    What's New?
    Writer's Block Series
    Writer Wellness
    ZOMBIE CHUNKS

    Archives

    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.