I moved the book blog to this url --> http://tencentnotes.blogspot.com. Finally a blogger address, so you should definitely click on over there and follow me. Definitely.
& now the post...
I want an agent.
I want an agent, a book deal, books that are stocked face-out in Barnes & Noble. (I want Barnes & Noble to not go under.) I want to sell out my advance. Have a bestseller. Have pretty, shiny covers and books made into movies and readers, omg, I want readers.
Most of those are just wishes though. Dreams. If I ever have a book stocked face-out I won't be able to stop myself from literally jumping for joy. And a bestseller? HA! Even an agent and a book deal are... well, they're not exactly happening for me at this moment in time.
Which isn't a happy thought. If I focus on it for too long things become fuzzy and I get grumpy and fall downward into that pit of self-loathing and pity and whyyy aren't I good enough?
Really though, more short-term than any of the above goals, there are smaller things that I want to accomplish with my writing. I want to write a chapter a day. I want to love my book and stop thinking that it sucks. I want to find a way to balance writing with school. I want someone, who isn't in any way related to me, to read my manuscript and tell me they wish it were on shelves right now. Bonus points if this person is an agent. Or an editor. I want to write something that people genuinely like. Something good.
Mostly, I don't have that much talent as a writer. What I have more than anything, I think, is passion. Or obsession, if you prefer to put it that way. What I have is that I want this. I want it so bad that I can't imagine doing anything else, so bad that I have to push away the possibility that it might not -- probably won't, even -- happen, because it just hurts too much. I want this enough to finish the novels I start, to not give up when it takes me a week to figure out a particular scene, to take a deep breath and not delete that file when it's all I want to do.
There are things I want more than this, yes, of course there are.
But not many.
I don't write every day because I have nothing else to do. I don't finish first drafts because I think they're masterpieces. Sometimes, I don't even do it because I love it. I mean, yes, I do love it. But sometimes -- often, even -- I keep writing, keep going, because it improves my odds. The more words I type, the more novels I finish and edit, the more queries I send out, the more I keep pushing myself, the greater chance there is that someone will fall in love. With my words. The greater chance there is that I'll actually be a writer.
That I might get what I want.
