4829

4829 - that is how many words I have written for my book.

10 pages in a word document. I have read that novels start at about 80,000 words.

I have some writing to do and I love it.

I love spending part of my day in a fictional world. Some of the time, I am pushing the story along, but I have had those moments I have read about, where a character changes things on me. Where I am writing dialogue in one direction and I can almost hear the character writing different words. Nothing crazy, just the character becoming more alive and less of a cliche in my head.

It is work for sure to sit down and face a blank page, to have to figure out how my characters are going to get from one scene to the next. It is work just to get myself to the blank page. It is easy to get distracted after school drop off, to fill up the few hours I have when the house is quiet enough to really get some work done. There are so many things I want to do with these few hours of freedom I have. I want to get to the gym. I want to have long, uninterrupted chats with over coffee with friends. Even when I am at my desk with my laptop, there are so many places on the internet to visit. I love twitter @findingfruit and finding new people to follow. I love seeing what my friends up in Oregon are up to on Facebook. And I love reading other people's blogs and then clicking through the comments to new blogs. The distractions are endless.

But more and more, I am wanting to write. The story is taking on more shape. I am finding myself drifting into the story when I am folding laundry or driving the kids to the pool. I am finding myself sitting down at my desk more and more often to type out a new scene or to let the characters find their way to the next major plot point I have in mind.

I am loving the writing and yet it is also so incredibly scary to do something that I feel completely inadequate to do. I feel so silly at times. Who am I to think I can write a book? I read amazing stories crafted by talented authors and wonder how I have the audacity to think I can do the same thing.

I recognize that my writing may never amount to much more than the process. But what I have learned is that most of life is not about the results. It is about the process. The best life lessons, the most growth have come as I faced the unknown and walked the steps. There is value and worth in the process no matter the results. I will be changed in the process.