Thursday, December 11, 2008

Juicy Stories I Have Written

I know that some of you may wonder where in the hell I have been the last month, and at times, I was wondering the same thing! Life for me is a series of learning and changing and growing. I keep challenging myself to learn and do, and to be willing to keep trying new things.

In the past I was more likely to want everything in my life to settle into a nice happy place with a loving partner and everyone would live happily ever after. I know you have heard that one before! But since I have become a Life Coach and began working on myself, and challenging my thoughts and beliefs, I seem to have opened up a huge well of creativity that continues to want to create more.

In the month of November I did something that I had never considered before. I joined the ranks of writers who take part every year at this time in the National Novel Writing Month. The idea was to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. I had been wanting to write more, and thought what's the worst that could happen, and so I dived in.

I hadn't thought much about writing a novel before I started on November 1st. Most of my writing has been non-fiction, either self-help or biography. When I began writing, my thoughts of course went to relationships and self-esteem. So, I began writing a trashy, adventure, romance novel. I must tell you that I enjoyed this immensely!! This type of writing allowed me to get in the heads of my characters and try to figure out what they would say or do next. I completed the 50,000 words at about 4pm on November 30th, and have been recovering ever since.

This is what I learned from this experience:

  • If I decide to do something, anything is possible.
  • That challenging myself to stretch further in relationships and creativity helps build my self esteem.
  • That writing sexually charged dialogue and scenes can be good for a marriage!
  • That I love to write in any form, and that more of these types of challenges are in my future.
  • That challenging you the reader to stretch yourself, feels like the right thing to do at this moment.

What are you not doing that you wish you could? Do you have a dream or idea that you are putting off doing?

My challenge to you is find a way to take that first step today!! You will not regret it!

Marquita

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I have always wanted to do NaNoWriMo myself -- you're inspiring me to do it this year.....!

Marquita said...

Hi Lynn,

My suggestion is next year, just do it. Don't even think about it. I am planning on doing it again, and we could be writing buddies. Look me up when you get started!

Marquita

jim said...

Hi Marquita,
Jim Murphy here. If you told me you had a blog, I must have missed it or forgotten. When I got to this Novel Writing post, I wondered what the visual artist's equivalent would be. It's 30 paintings in 30 days. I bought 30 panels 8"x10" and started on 5/13/09. So far (5 days) I'm on track. Scary at first to take the leap but at day 5 I'm thinking 90 in 90. I'll decide when I get my 30 done on schedule. Thanks for the inspiration!