The new year is two days away, and until about 10 minutes ago I had no resolution. Normally, I don't care about making resolutions, because I see no reason why someone can't commit to something on, say, April 13th. Plus, I've usually failed to keep any resolutions I've tried to make. So why am I bothering this year? I'm not really sure. Call it boredom during time off. Then again, my resolution for this year is something I've wanted to do since high school. The fact that I happen to have decided to start it now is a coincidence (unless the spirit of the new year is affecting me in a subconscious way). So what is my resolution, you might ask? Hopefully you've figured it out from the title of this blog, you clever person!
I'm not 100% sure that writing a blog will help me to write this novel. Part of me wants to say it will help me organize my thoughts and ideas. On the other hand, I am perfectly aware it might backfire. This blog may make me tire me of writing faster. Who knows? I would like to think that at the end of the year, having finished a first draft, I will have this blog to look back on and remember the struggles and my moments of inspiration.
Breaking off for a minute, my goal is not to have a complete, polished novel ready to send out to publishers. I am only seeking to write a decent first draft. After all, I am working a full time job for the first time, and I am still adjusting to losing my student holidays and budgeting my time off. That might be my toughest obstacle. To think that I had all these years of college and part time work when I could have done all this much more easily, meanwhile I only dreamed of writing a novel. My timing may not be the best.
I may have waited as long as I have because I wasn't confident in my writing. I still am not, but I know I need to start somewhere. My writing experience to date consists of a high school Senior Out of School Experience novella project, two creative writing college courses, and a whole bunch of toying around with stories that are way too embarrassing for me to go into. I have made two attempts to write a novel before, and those both fall into the embarrassing category as well.
So what will my story be about? As of right now I am planning on writing a novel I've had in my mind for a year now, and just recently started doing some research for it...
... I am just starting to discover the problem of this blog. I'm hesitant to reveal too much about this novel on the internet, in case someone else were to take it... not that I think I've got the all-grand plot idea and people are going to try to steal my genius story, but I do like to think I have a new idea and I'd like to keep it original!
Let's just say that it involves a woman who appears to wake from a coma with total retrograde episodic amnesia... but that's not really what is going on. I've got to be careful, though, not to make it seem like the way comas and amnesia are represented in soap operas and movies. I am making sure I know everything I can about comas and retrograde episodic amnesia, first, so I can get it right. But like I said, the woman is not experiencing what everyone else thinks. In fact, since this woman does not really have amnesia I'm probably going to have a couple skeptical characters who notice what about my main character's experience does not fit with an amnesia diagnosis. Is that giving away too much?
Geez, I wish I could go into more detail. Am I being paranoid leaving information out? Hopefully, rather than making this blog less exciting by being a tad secretive, it will make it so that WHEN this novel is eventually published (what, I can't have a dream?) this blog will make you want to run out and buy it to find out what the hell I'm talking about!
My inspiration for this novel, if I were to narrow it down to one, would be The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's got the feel I'm hoping to achieve. Plus, it's got a character who is experiencing something that seems impossible and that no one understands. That is approximately what I was aiming for in a plot. If you haven't read it, you should!
I'll write again once I've started writing my novel. There is a little more research to be done, first.
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