It is My Ultimate Goal to Write a Novel Some Day
When I was younger, I used to pray to God that one day I would be able to make my living as a writer. My wish was granted, but not in the way I had thought it would be.
I became a journalist, even though it was really always my desire to write a novel. I fancied myself the next Stephen King and was certain that I would write several books and be revered the world over.
From the time I was a child, the idea of being an author really appealed to me. My favorite book as a child was called The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, because I was a middle child, and could really identify with what the protagonist of the story was going through.
As I got older, I obviously started reading more challenging books, including my favorite novel of all time and the one that really made me realize that I would one day like to write a novel.
The book was Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. It is the story of Jean Valjean and his life and pursuits, and I thought it was brilliant. The unabridged version is almost 1,500 pages, and I have probably read the book three or four times.
A few years ago, I decided to begin work on my own first novel, and I had only a vague idea of what I wanted to write. I did not want to have too much planned out, because I really liked the idea of letting things come to me as I wrote, and sort of seeing where it took me.
I did not write a novel per se; I would call it more of a novella. It was about 230 pages long, and also revolved around one main character throughout the majority of the story.
I felt proud of myself in the sense that I had completed something so substantial, but I was a little disappointed at the same time. I did not actually write a novel, as I had originally set out to do, because it was not long enough, and the story just kind of wrapped up on its own.
I re-read it a number of times, trying to figure out where I could flesh it out a little more here and there, but it was really to no avail. The book was what it was, and there was not a whole lot more that I could do.
The good thing is that I recently came up with another idea for a novel, and believe that I will be able to make this one much longer. Part of the fun of writing is being able to come up with new ideas if the first one does not pan out the way you would have hoped.
I still plan to write a novel in the near future, and if I am lucky, one day my book could be published just like the writers I looked up to as a child.
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