Hard

      Writing a book is hard. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. Oh, plenty of books will help you with plot, character, and structure. You can find writing courses and teachers galore. You can find support from writing groups and fellow writers. The web has hundreds of sites devoted to helping you write.
      And the ideas aren't hard. If you want to be a writer, you probably already have scenes and characters rambling around in your head. They're screaming to be placed on paper. You have plots and plot twists, themes and sub-themes, and major and minor characters jumping at the chance to star in your novel.
      The hard part is sitting down and actually writing. Actually putting in the time night after night, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, and so on until they find you slumped over your keyboard.
      I tell you right now that I think I might have been a happier person, a wealthier person, a more contented person if I had never wanted this dream to be real. If I had left it like so many, many, many other people do -- "I'm going to write a book someday " -- and never had the audacity to think, to believe, to know that I could write a book.
      I'm talking about this now because last night I had a hard time getting the words. I was tired, worn out from work and worrying about bills, feeling overwhelmed by my health problems and by trying to figure out how to pay for my medications. I did not want to sit down at my computer and write after having spent the day in front of my work computer attempting to help customers who ranged from rude to angry. (What I wouldn't give to hear a 'thank you' just once from some of them.)
      I think that if I hadn't told so many people about my schedule for the book -- that Murder by the Acre will be published in June, and June isn't far away -- I would have watched TV or read or done anything other than wrestle with the book. But that's what I did.
      I planted my sorry butt in the chair and typed and jumped back into the world of Ryton. I wrestled with Bernard and Lisa's complicated relationship, threw a few more clues toward the chief and Sims, and spent time making sure that everyone was hitting their marks and saying the right lines to keep the story moving, heading everyone toward that deadly confrontation with the dangerous psycho(s) who intends to kill anyone and everyone who might reveal his/her/their identity.
      I finished my words, watched Leno, Last of the Summer Wine, and crawled gratefully into bed. Today I will do it all again.
      And that's the life of a writer. My life. And for all this complaining, I don't think I'd trade with the richest man in the world.
      Although … perhaps it would be better if he didn't offer.