Notes from a Wannabe Novelist

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. – Matthew 7:7

There are days I wait for inspiration to strike me, knowing fully well that true writers can grab inspiration out of thin air, and make words up from even the most mundane. And then, I remind myself that what I imagine to be a true writer is really an idealization of what a “true” writer looks like.

In reality, all writers experience the void of self-doubt ever so often, and that self-doubt itself is a part of the process.

So, I stretch my hands out, my palms open, waiting for an offering. A sign of sorts.

And there you are, handing me exactly what I need, your question telling me what I need to know, the only affirmation I need in myself:

Don’t you want to become a novelist?

Don’t I?

I accept, holding your question close to me, reveling in the lightness it brings to my writer’s being, that indescribable feeling of contentment, that unnameable vital energy I have been running after, hoping that it will solve the puzzle of me being who I think I am. And accepting that conviction isn’t enough. The “doing” is also important.

Or else, how am I supposed to become a goddamn novelist? How else am I going to say that, yes, yes, I am! I am a writer.