Part One. The Hardest Thing

A few of the hardest things I've encountered:

- Breaking up with my girlfriend in the eleventh grade.
- Learning to cook Chicken Pontchartrain without stressing out.
- Overcoming my phobia of needles (still working on that one).
- Writing a novel (also in progress).

           In all honesty, the last one has been the toughest of them all. I've been attempting to write a novel since I was twelve. Not the same one, of course, but rather a series of ambitious daydreams that I've battered and butchered until I've ended up tossing the whole lot in the trash. For the last decade, the timeline has gone a little something like this:
          
               1. "That's a good idea."
               2. Mild storyboard
               3. "That's a GREAT idea."
               4. Begin Writing.
               5. "Is it 'your' or 'you're'?"
               6. "Does that sound right?"
               7. "Will this win the Pulitzer?"
               8. "I don't know what's next."
               9.  Reread what I've got.
             10. "This doesn't sound very good."
             11. Looking up at Shakespeare, Milton, Hemingway, Stoker, Bradbury, and other such authors on my shelf and thinking back to my story: "Wow. This does suck."

          At that point it's very indeterminable if it matters whether I've used big enough words or whether I've used too many big words. I've either tried too hard or not nearly enough. After a while of reading and rereading I'm forced to loathe the idea of working on a novel at all. But why? Is it my writing? I feel I'm a pretty decent writer. Is it my story? No, I'm pretty convinced that this is a bulletproof concept. So what is it?! If it's such a tedious, destined-to-fail process why in the heck do I continue to pursue it?
          Here's the point: I'm working on a novel that I intend to finish (I haven't said that one before). In the process I want to answer a million and one questions and track its progress (fly or fail). When I run into an issue that I feel ANYONE writing a book might encounter, I intend upon overcoming it and explaining how and why I did so.
          If nothing else I want this blog to motivate me to finish my own book and if it helps you along the way or provides you at least with an outlet of entertainment, that's work well done.

Note to readers: I tend to put comas wherever I feel I've paused or taken a breath in the sentence, grammatically correct or not. Apologies.