In April I read two books:

Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess
This is the fascinating story of Lea Jacobson, who moved to Japan to teach English and ended up working as a nightclub hostess.  I read the entire book in less than 24 hours; I couldn’t put stop reading.  And I don’t want to be too critical of the book because the author is obviously a very strong woman and she has a masters degree.  She has published a book and I have published nothing.  However, reading this book made me realize that you are far more likely to be published if you have an interesting story, regardless of the quality of your writing.  This book had several grammatical and typographical errors, which annoyed me.  (This is where my friends would remind you that I’m a grammar Nazi.)  Also, the exposition seemed tedious, and the constant reference to personal problems such as self-mutilation distracted from the story about life in Japan.  I really liked this book, but it made me realize that not every book is the result of stellar writing.  Reading this book made me feel like I should really start writing my book.

78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might
I read this book with the idea that it would help me write my book.  This was an amazing book, which managed to be informative, helpful, humorous, and serious.  Anyone thinking of writing a book should read this work by Pat Walsh.

Writing a novel is harder than I thought it would be.  Right now I have 45 pages containing about 13,000 words, and this is way behind where I thought I’d be at this time.  I’ve been really really sick, which has caused all sorts of delays in my plans.  Hopefully I can write 60,000 words by the end of November.

I started working on my novel before October 1st.  I have 35 pages and about 10,300 words.  I plan to write at least 50,000 words by the end of October.  I might be delusional, but if I am able to finish writing the story within October, I might try to write a second story for NaNoWriMo in November.  We’ll see how exhausted I become.

Throughout my life I have been told that I should be a writer.  The first person to tell me this was my father, but I shrugged it off because all parents think their children will grow up to be great.  When I was in elementary school my father self-published his own autobiography.  By the time I reached high school I assumed that he was just telling me that I should be a writer, not because I had any real talent, but because he was projecting his own wishes for himself onto me.

When I was in high school, a creative writing teacher told me that I should try to have some work published and thought that I should study writing in college.  I ignored her because she was teaching a creative writing elective class with students who were less than interested.  I was interested in writing, but I never believed that interest alone would be enough.  I thought that she was mistaking my interest for talent.

I ignored my teacher’s advice and instead studied to become a lawyer.  The lawyer who was supervising me at an internship asked me to write a motion for him.  When I submitted the motion, he told me that it was not what he had wanted, but he said that he thought I should write novels.  I suddenly felt as if I had come to a fork in the road and had chosen the wrong path.  Nevertheless, I continued on in my law school education.

I graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and became a lawyer.  I was single, and a friend recommended that I join a dating service.  I joined Yahoo! Personals thinking that I might meet other lawyers or young professionals to date.  (This was before the class action lawsuit.)  Instead, what I got were two different men who responded to my profile, not wanting to date me, but they told me I should write.  One said I should consider writing novels, the other asked if I had ever written humorous editorials.  At this point I was crushed.

I began talking to my office neighbor at work who was writing a novel.  She was the first person I’ve met who is actually in the process of writing a novel.  We talked about finding a writers workshop to attend, but inertia got the best of me.  Then life intervened, with my boyfriend checking into rehab, and I began seeing a therapist.  Wouldn’t you know, my therapist listened to the way I talk about life and said that I have a dry sense of humor about me.  She asked if I had ever considered writing novels.  This time I actually thought about it.

For the past two years I’ve told myself that I’m going to do NaNoWriMo, however, each November I found myself being promoted to a new job.  Feeling overwhelmed with my new work responsibilities, I put off my thoughts of writing until later.  November is now on it’s way, and I have no idea what’s in my cards as far as work goes.  So, I’ve decided that starting October 1st, I’m really going to start writing something.  It might not be a novel, and it might not be good, but I am going to write, and I am going to find a writers workshop to attend.