Here are 13 things I’ve discovered since then.

1. Don’t try  to write alone and w/o support from other writers. You need to know the madness is OK.
2. Take a writing workshop -it’s amazing how much better and more consistent you’ll become.
3. I don’t read romance novels. I said I wasn’t writing a romance. I’m writing a romance.
4. Your characters and their world take over yours.
5. Other writing friends are invaluable.
6. When you proclaim you are a writer, you are a writer.
7. A writer sits and does the work, day in and day out.
8. On some days that works totally sucks. But that’s ok. This is one job where sucky work is ok and expected.
9. With this job, if you decide to sit and watch movies all day, its ok -its research.
10. But you can only do that once in a while, the rest of the time, you have to sit and do the work.
11. My characters tell me where the story is going and they have made me cry.
12. Yesterday, because they were talking to me, I put the phone in the garbage can. This happens a lot.
13. Family members eventually learn to recognize that look in your eyes that lets them know you are off in  your characters world and they finally stop mentioning the Psyche ward.

]]> http://ashjoielee.com/thursday-thirteen-13-things-i-discovered-when-i-started-a-novel/feed/ 3 http://ashjoielee.com/who-gave-me-permission/ http://ashjoielee.com/who-gave-me-permission/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:02:02 +0000 Ash http://ashjoielee.com/?p=152 Each morning I start my day by reading a chapter from one of Natalie Goldberg’s books. Right now I am going through Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life

I have not posted much about my writing here; I’ve learned that living the writers life is, well, very bohemian. Not many get it and many can’t grasp what you are saying when you are talking about it, that is unless they themselves are a writer. So, I’m careful with whom I talk to about it and I don’t always feel comfortable posting about the daily stuff of the writers life.
That said, the chapter I read today was called “Who Gave You Permission?”
The topic was about how at some point in our lives, there comes along an older, wiser more experienced writer who sees our work and gives us the “nod”. The nod of permission.
That doesn’t mean that if we desire to write that we have to wait for the nod. If we desire to write, we write. No one has the right to tell us we can’t or shouldn’t. It is a craft; it is something that takes time to learn. Just like any other pursuit, even if you do have some natural talent, you need to learn the rules and practice the skills.
But, after I read that chapter, it hit me-I finally met that person and got that nod-and wow, did it change my life!
Before now, I didn’t have encouragement or support. I wrote for myself, secretly, being hurt too many times by people who were either jealous that I was writing or who said ignorant things about writing.
Many years went by in which I had given up the notion of taking writing seriously, but it was always there, that desire. And when I stepped out of the way, the Universe went about its job of setting things up, so that I did get that encouragement and support.
This post is a huge THANK YOU to McKenna Donovan for her nod. For believing in me and for changing my life.
Not only has she been supportive and a fabulous mentor, but she has become my friend and I feel so very lucky and grateful!
My life now is one in which there are many with whom I can share that wild and mad life called the writers life. We are each giving birth to our precious babies or we have newborns that we are caring for. We each tenderly look after one another’s baby, in whatever stage it may be in.

I am reminded of the scene in the movie Babe, where the farmer simply nods and says, “Well done pig.”
Simple words, but they mean so much.