So now what do I do....

I'm a control freak of the highest order. I don't let my husband drive when we have to go places together. I sit and hover over my poor children when they have swim lessons. I am always the first to volunteer for something I have to partake in. I have anxiety about flying--not because I'm scared per se of the actual flight, but because I don't get to pilot the damn plane. I could go on and on...

So now I find myself in a situation where I'm floundering a bit. Which I hate, because let's face facts who doesn't want to start at the top and work their way up. *g*

 I started out as a song writer which I did and do still love. I learned to play acoustic guitar and sat down with a pencil and paper and muddled through my first song. Then, because I'm not a complete jerk, I knew it was complete garbage, but as my father always likes to tell me, 'it takes shit and rain to make flowers grow'. So, I took it and paid a professional producer and songwriter and I told her to rip me a new a-hole. I knew it was horrid. What I didn't know was how to fix it. What was wrong with it, other than it was duller than a thirty year old pocket knife? I wanted her to give me steps. I wanted her to say if you want 'X' then you need to do 'Y'. Sadly, all I got was her critiques of my current Billboard-never-going-to-make-it and then we sat and wrote a new song together and plugged through the thing.

So here I am, throwing my hat in the ring--trying to write a fiction story. I am an avid reader. I probably read 400+ books a year and have been doing so since I was 16 years old. So I know what I like, I've seen what a lot of people have written and how they wrote their stories.

Unlike with a song (which is an average of three minutes and thirty seconds) where the story is so condensed, I'm have to expand the hell out of it. Word choices. Character development. Overall story arc, etc, etc, etc. All things I have little to no experience writing. So to soothe my OCD, control freak ways, I've been reading blogs, books, articles, picking people's brains. You name it, I've attempted it.

Here is the basic summary of what I've read thus far:
1. Put your ass in the chair.
2.Write everyday.
3. Don't edit as you go.
4. Write what you are passionate about.

While all this sounds like solid advice. Forgive me for thinking it all a little trite. Was I expecting you to give me the secret squirrel handshake? No. But I was expecting something more than that very short list of obvious.

Conclusion: I'm just going to have to do what I know. Write the bullshit, bullshit. Then take it to someone (like, oh say, an experienced editor) and have her rip me a new a-hole and then tell me the why's and how's. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

Do I think this is going to put me on the NYT Bestseller's List? Hells to the no, but I've got to start somewhere.

On a side note, I'm a member of the M/M Romance group on Goodreads and am participating in their "Love Has No Boundaries" event. I'm submitting a story. (See look Ma, this is me, putting my ass in the chair.) So we'll see how that catastrophe turns out.

It's called "Undeniable". If anyone reads it, I love honest feedback. And its free, so ya know, there's that. I'm not sure when the group is going to release everything, but when I do I'll post it here.

For now--Reece out.