Writing a book
After speaking to an editor from a publishing house, I decided to write a proposal for a book on the stuff I’ve been looking into for my MA- namely the divide between the real and the digital worlds and what this is doing to us.
I’ve written two proposals now. Both I’ve trashed because they weren’t good enough… or good enough for me to spend a year or more working on. Writing them has allowed me to hone my ideas and get to the core of what I’m thinking. I’m very happy with where I’ve got to and I’m about to start writing my third (and final) proposal.
It is, however, a nerve-wracking process. What if someone DOES want me to write it? Am I a good enough writer? Can I actually write a book? Is what I’m thinking even remotely interesting? Will anyone want to actually read it?
So many of my friends are writers and I’ve often thought what a gift it is to be a writer, to put your thoughts down- in any way – have leave them for others to read and get into your mind, understand even slightly what it might be like to be that You inside you. Writing allows you to leave a trace of who you were…
I’m a very harsh critic of myself and despite my outward confidence, I’m actually fairly insecure about my ‘creative’ work. I think this is because growing up I never once thought that ‘someone like me’ would be able to do any of that. Those things were what fancy people did. I wasn’t a fancy person. It’s that little voice inside me that keeps holding me back…
I’m going for it though and I hope I successfully get a deal. Perhaps just that will remove a bit of the insecurity. But if the positive judgement of my ideas, made concrete in a signed book deal, doesn’t remove those insecurities, then nothing will… and I’ll just have to continue to live with it. Plough through it and just write the damned book…
I know I can write though. I know I’m good – not the best at all, but good. Readable. That’s OK with me.