Shannanigan's Search for More...

The trick about getting the idea in one's head to write a novel, is that in order for it to acutally happen, you have to commit yourself to it.

This has always been my problem. I've got novel ideas coming out of my ears, but I just keep running into issues of TIME.

I'll admit, there have been times when I really wasn't too busy to be writing. I've had my share of lazy summers and easy semesters. For those, I will take responsibility for. Still, I'm not getting any younger, and time isn't getting any more abundant.

So here I sit, with this new book idea. I acually even started writing it this week, since I've been all holed up in my apartment riding out Hurricane Omar. And yet, I know that once I get back to school on Monday, that the book will be set aside, left to collect whatever kind of dust collects on a file in a jump drive.

I saved it to a jump drive with the fantastical thought that maybe, during my prep periods, I could sit in the teacher's lounge and get more writing done. Pah. As if. Any teacher knows that I'm more likely to have an entire class pass with a grade of 101%.

Grrr.

I don't want to give up on another idea! I've had too many lost to my tattered notebooks, I want one to at least make it to a publisher to be rejected! Sheesh!

I read that the key thing to do it just set a time aside each day (or night) to write, and tell yourself that you will get at least ____ pages done every 24 hours.

I don't know, I stay up as late as it is planning, and it's not going to get any easier. Next quarter I start teaching the stuff that I didn't cover while student teaching...all new material for me and the kiddies, yay!

This is why I want the Stegner Fellowship, so I won't feel guilty taking a break from teaching to write, and to have people riding my *** and depending on me to write for two solid years.

Never has that sounded so attractive.