Novel in progress

I'm in the throws of writing a novel. It's exciting and intimidating, and it makes me feel accomplished every single day that I work on it. The other side is the business side where I have to research agents and publishers and small literary presses for my short works. This is my livelihood and what I was meant to do. I feel most alive when I'm writing and creating something out of nothing.

I was watching a silly show the other day and Susan Sarandon guess starred where she played a writer. She said, "they also say 'write what you know', but I say write what you don't want others to know." I thought it was inspiring and a reminder to brave. Every time that I write I am scared and that voice comes out that warns me to be careful of what I reveal.

And then there is the other voice that doubts and says, "who gives you the right to write." Ha! I just saw Billy Crystal in an interview talking about his book "Still Foolin' 'Em" where he feels like he's tricking everyone with what he's doing. I feel like that when I write. But I guess that's a good feeling because it means I'm doing something I love, and I feel like I'm tricking others.

So now I am eager and ambitious to get this novel written. I'm at 50 pages, and it's about a young girl disconnected to the world, herself and others. Of course it's much more than that, but it's always so hard to explain when you're writing about human nature. I am publishing this declaration of my writing endeavors because then I guess, to me, it makes it more real. And it's cathartic to write about the process. In graduate school I took a course about the creative process. It's fascinating to learn about others' processes--actually it's more a way of living than a process. So here I go....