Musings of a Hopeful Author

I remember the first time I tried to write a story that I thought had the potential to be a novel. I was really excited about the characters and I knew what I wanted as the end result, so I thought I would just jump in and let the story lead me. Well, by chapter three I was mortified to realize that I had made the female lead a tramp, haha. It was supposed to be a slow burn romance and she was already succumbing to his charms and the plot hadn't really had time to even get established. It was in that moment of embarrassment and mortification that I realized I was not one of those writers who could just write and let the story take them where it would. I was the kind who needed some type of outline and structure. It was a really important lesson for me because when I have outlined in the time since then I have had a much better result for actually completing a story. Short stories are exceptions for me. I tend to let the writing take me where it will for those, haha. Probably why I

 Something I learned about myself in college is that I need goals and deadlines in order to really be productive and push myself to get things done. While I love the freedom to write when I like, etc. I know I need to be more consistent or else things never get finished (ex. this blog's lack of consistency and the fact I have about 20 unfinished/not even really started stories sitting on my hard drive). So, in order to help give myself a bit of a push, I thought I'd recruit someone to help push me along the path. Who? Well, my grandmother, that's who. She's not someone who reads for leisure so getting her onboard to read something I wrote is really special. She's always a good sport about reading one of my stories, but she doesn't like to be sent novels in their entirety. She likes to get them one chapter at a time so they don't feel as daunting. This bit is key. Her only wanting a chapter at a time means I can send her already written chapters and keep work