Second Star to the Write

I've decided to write a book.

This isn't the first time I've decided this, since grade school, I'd planned to write a novel, but I never really got that far into it. I do remember filling a good amount of front and back pages with a science fiction story in high school, but I don't remember much about the actual story... Something with a space ship and a primitive but somehow familiar world.

Lindsay has always had ambitions to write and has been working a great deal on a novel lately, and that has prompted me to try my hand.

I've decided my main 3 obstacles are:

1- The actual writing. I'm a slow typist, I hunt and peck, primarily with my two index fingers with the occasional assist from my right middle finger and my thumb, so typing a full novel could be a slow process, and that might frustrate me.

2- Time. I have a lot of things going on as a general rule. I work full time, we have 2 dogs that require a great deal of attention, I read voraciously, the house needs cleaned, yardwork needs done, I do the rare art commissions, sculptures, unpacking the entire house from our failed attempt at getting a motel... Finding the time to actually write a book will take some real effort and forced management on my part, which could be a good thing.

3- Actually making any money off of it. I know that in the back of my head, I'm doing this because I hope that it will sell and make us enough extra money that we might be able to achieve our dreams of buying a motel to run. I tell myself out loud that I'm doing it for the love of creation and because I like writing, but I know that it's in the hope of making some money from it down the line. I know a little about publishing, but have no connections or anything.. of course, I have to write the thing first.


To that end, I've recently started batting around a few ideas to start with, and have actually started 2 novels before dropping them and moving on. I started a detective novel series, with a slightly nerdy main character that finds himself caught up in a tawdry murder investigation that no one thinks happened. I started a zombie novel with the employees and customers of an overnight drug store trying to survive a zombie plague. (I know... write what you know, eh?)

Then I decided to write something a little more fun, and a little more personally thrilling. As a kid, I loved books and one author that I always got a huge amount of enjoyment from was John Bellairs, who wrote around two dozen young adult novels. They were, for the most part, mysteries, around 50,000 words and illustrated by Edward Gorey, (who also created the Addams Family) I started thinking about how much fun it would be to write a book like that, or a series of books. I could draw the illustrations for it myself as well, and being a young adult book, it would be shorter, so I would have a better chance of actually finishing it.

The idea for the story stemmed from a conversation I had at work the other night, where I told my employee all of my personal ghost stories and experiences from growing up. One in particular stuck in my head, and it started to form itself into something firmer.

As of this moment, I've officially been working on the novel since April 26th. Typically, I'm really quite superstitious about posting updates on things till after the fact, but I'm trying to get past that irrational thought, and to that end, I'm hoping to do quite regular updates on my progress.

It's kind of scary, and odd. I've never written anything for a Young Adult audience, and haven't been one for a long time, so I hope I know what I'm doing. I've started to love the characters, and though the story has diverged from the original concept, I like where it's headed. It should be fun.