Practice Makes Books?

My first story was due Monday.

Needless to say, my weekend was basically non-existent.

I sat in my red, plush sweats on my unmade bed,

stuffing wonderful Valentine's Day chocolate and Orange

Juice down my throat, staring at my computer for hours

and hours and waiting for some stroke of brilliance to occur.

You would think after all that work, all that time, effort,

and sweat - you would be at least a little pleased with

your finished product.

No sirreee.

I've decided that crafting fiction is just not my thing.

It's something I wish I could do. I wish I could pull wonderful,

fascinating worlds from my buns and cause my readers to

empathize and truly care for my characters.

But no.

This is a very difficult thing to do. And I just haven't quite

mastered it yet. I realized this weekend that I may never will.

I think writers aren't given enough credit. I mean it's one thing

to come up with an initial premise and be able to say, "Hey this

would make an awesome story." It's another thing entirely to

actually create something that people would want to read, a

real page-turner.

I guess that's somewhat obvious.

One of my dreams in life is to be on the Barnes and Noble

shelves some day. I want to write a book that people will

choose to read, flipping through the crisp, new pages,

glancing over the back cover, thinking "I can't wait to get

home so I can read this!"

That's usually how my buying-books-process goes anyway.

There's no real formula to it. I tend to gravitate to the really

pretty covers with exquiste fonts and elaborate pictures.

Or, I lean toward the most atrocious ones.

There's simply no room for "ordinary" on my reading list.

I can't decide whether I want my book to have an

awesome or hideous cover... but I guess I'm getting

ahead of myself.

Maybe someday I'll be a household name

like Nicolas Sparks or James Patterson (although let's

pray I have better technique than them).

Maybe someday people will wait up all night in front of

B&N in the freezing cold just to get their grimy hands

on my next novel. JK Rowlings and Stephanie Meyer can

relate.

Maybe, Maybe.

I guess until then I'm stuck with practicing, which can be

real hard. Writing a Novel is going to kill me in the fall.

I guess it's a good think I like what I do :)