Self Doubt

 Everyone expects that writing a book will be challenging.  It is, after all, a lot of words.  And those words need to make sense.  They need to tell a story that is captivating and comes to life in the reader's mind.  So yes, writing a book is challenging.  

But not as challenging as you'd think.

Here's a little secret about people that like to write.  We have words floating around in our heads all the time.  Those words grab onto each other and form sentences and those sentences form stories.  The stories never stop.  Now, sometimes the stories are terrible.  Those rarely leave our minds and mostly happen while waiting in line at the grocery store or during very long car trips.  But sometimes the story is fantastic.  And that's when a novel is born.

Writing the novel was the easy part.  Of course there were moments of writers block and moments where I struggled to make things make sense.  Moments where I cursed myself for having a love of multiple timelines, and why, oh why did it have to be post apocalyptic? But for the most part the writing was the easy part.  I have carried the story with me for years.  Putting it down seemed the natural thing to do.  I loved arranging the words into pretty little sentences, watching my characters and their world emerge.  I rejoiced when I finally reached the point where I could say The End.  And then I grew a bit sad because the part that came next- the part I'm at now- is truly terrifying.

I do not know how to tell people I want to be a writer.  

Writers are grown ups who have their shit together.  And most days I feel like I'm pretending with my silly little book.  I worry I do not have the courage to take those steps and put my book out into the world.  I fear that this thing I hold so dearly will be mocked and I'll be crushed.  It might not be good enough to ever be anything.

But then again, it just might be.  It might be good.  Hell, it might even be great.  But if I sit here and let my fears and self doubt overwhelm me I will never know.  My characters will die before they ever get a chance to truly breath.

This post is me taking the first steps towards putting myself out there.  I'm revamping my blog and social media just a bit and using it to promote myself.  I'm an introverted person with social anxiety.  I don't put myself out there willingly.  But maybe I can do it for those characters I love.  Maybe I can pretend to be someone I'm not.  Someone who is confident and sure.  Someone who can walk into a room full of people and say, "Hi, I'm a writer."

Because I want to end this on a positive note, and because I'm super proud of it, here is a map of Dent that I made with some help from my gamer geek son.  While Tiny Sparks is set in the real world, the little town of Dent, MT is entirely fictional.  It was fun to bring it to life and I look forward to posting more of my own bookish content on here!  If you'd like to create your own maps I highly recommend you check out Inkarnate.