Ramblings on Writing

I apologize in advance...this post takes a different tack than normal. 

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my writing lately.  If Billa's godmother Debi were to read this, she'd tell me I need to actually write, not think about it.  But the truth is, I was writing.  And then I stopped because life got in the way and yada yada yada.  I've been trying to maintain my blogs, work my day job, raise my daughter, manage my household, build a baking business, and be a good wife/friend/daughter/sister, etc.  It's a lot.  So of course, those things that aren't necessary for survival have fallen by the wayside, like my writing.  I admit, I've also been doing a lot of reading lately and playing Scramble on my iPod and trying to beat Final Fantasy XIII.  I know, those things aren't exactly essential to survival, but they are for my sanity.

I've been thinking about writing lately, because I want it to become a bigger part of my life.  It's always been something that I've been called to, something that has always given me joy, and something that definitely always challenged me.  I get bored very quickly if I'm not challenged.  I require constant stimulation and to be pushed beyond my boundaries.  Some might call it masochism, others ADD.  I don't really care.  It's actually a part of me that I really like and love to embrace, for all of the irritations it presents me with.  I look at it as my instincts urging me to grab life by the horns. 

There are only 24 hours in every day, and unfortunately, I can't get more.  I have to get sleep at some point, and I have to work to make an income.  So that shoots down about 19 hours right there.  Everything that I want to do has to be squeezed into roughly 5 hours every day along with everything else I have to do: cook dinner, spend time with my family and friends, clean the house, etc.  So how can I fit in writing?  I find a lot of frustrations with it because I am easily distracted once I'm on the computer either by news, blogs, the husband, or the daughter.  And of course my family wants to spend time with me too.  (I know, how dare they?)  I have to carefully balance all these aspects of my life and poor little writing gets left by the wayside.

But not anymore.  I've always wanted to be a published writer.  I even went so far as to humiliate myself in front of my high school classmates in freshman English by boasting about how I would become a published writer at the age of 18 (oh, the things one does for their art!).  I've been writing since I was a kid, I wrote all through school, and I have continued to write to this day.  I feel confident that I am a decent writer, but I think I could be a great writer if I kept at it every day.  And the only way I can do that is to keep at it and make it a constant part of my life. 

I've been doing research the last few days on novel writing strategies and templates for developing plots and characters and structure.  And the one thing I've learned from all of this research is that there is a whole world to writing and publishing that I never knew existed.  Well, ok, I should give myself some credit.  I knew it existed, but I didn't realize how complex it all was.  There's query letters and writing conferences and genre types that you have to know.  There's loglines, synopses, samples, previews and more.  And the process itself!  It's enough to make your head spin.  I came to the realization that I have a lot to learn if I want to break into this industry and make my mark on the world as a writer.

I relish the challenge and I hope you will all bear with me as I work at developing my novels (yes, there is more than one rattling around in my head!) and hopefully soemday, get published.  I'm hoping to have at least something published by the time I'm 35.  Considering I still have 7 years until then, I think I handle it.

Cheers,
Kelly