The Magic of Doing What You Love

Writing and publishing a novel is a daunting task.

Well, publishing one is. For me, writing is the easy part.

The characters of my novels (those that will be published and those that will never see the eyes of any other person) and their stories live in my head rent-free. They act out their lives, their scenes, and all of their possibilities whenever boredom strikes or I rest my head for the night. I am sure this sounds like a nightmare to some, but I enjoy my mind roommates.

The hardest part of the writing process for me is the act of choosing what to write. And sticking to it.

The best way I can describe the feeling is to ask you to think of Black Friday. I don’t mean Black Friday now, where half-assed deals run for the entire month of November and leave you no better off than before. No, I mean Black Friday before Amazon took over the world. When people would crowd outside stores at midnight or line up down the block. When the entrance to the mall looked like an ant hill at opening time.

Now, imagine each of those dedicated shoppers is a book, or at least a character, vying for their chance to be written. Your store is at capacity with one shopper, at most two, and you have about a thousand people waiting outside, banging on the door, and making their arguments as to why they deserve to be in the store instead.

Okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic. But you get the point. It’s hard to pick and choose.

Forever Yours locked the doors to that shop and sat me down at the register.

Like no other book had ever done before, Forever Yours cleared the streets of my mind. The main characters, Aurelius and Eden, shooed away the ideas that begged to be written. Their story lit a fire under me that I had never felt before.

Suddenly, I had a full outline. I had sticker charts drawn up (positive reinforcement works great for me). I had time to sit down and write, day in and day out.

This book was determined to leave my mind and make it out into the world, and I was not going to be the thing to stop it.

So, I wrote it. And I loved writing it.

To be fair, I always love writing. When I write I become the story. I am the narrator, bratty and annoyed at anyone who could look his way. I am his sister, his father, his friend, and his enemy. I become the breeze that rustles his hair and the rain that darkens the sky. I am every villain, every hero, and every fool.

Now, I am well aware that what I actually am when I’m writing is a 22-year-old woman sitting underneath two blankets on her couch drinking hot chocolate and giggling like a mad scientist. But that isn’t what it feels like.

It feels like I am everything and I am nothing, all at once.

So, writing it was the easy part. And it certainly was the faster part as well.

I dreaded editing. So many authors I followed online made posts about hating editing. They joked about how long it takes and how dreadfully boring it all feels. I tried to file the complaints away with the authors who complained about writing, but it was hard not to prepare myself for the worst.

And then the time came.

So, I started editing it. And I loved editing it.

Every step I took past the writing process was filled with joy and disbelief. “I WROTE A BOOK!” I’d think, I’d scream, I’d mutter, I’d whisper, whenever I did anything.

I was ecstatic to connect to my dad’s laser printer and print multiple manuscripts to go over with my friends. I was overwhelmed with joy when I sent a Word document to my aunt to review.

Every typo, every strange sentence, every extra comma (sorry Mom), and every mark in red pen made me smile.

Each mistake I’d made filled me with awe. I’d written a book. A book worth correcting.

The editing doesn’t end. My book has not been published yet as I write these words, so I am not yet free of corrections. At times I have felt like I will be half-bald by the time it is released, having pulled out most of my hair while adjusting margin sizes and resubmitting a manuscript 100 times.

And god, it feels amazing.

Each time I restrain myself from throwing my laptop across the room in frustration, I find myself smiling and dancing around my apartment only a few moments later. “I WROTE A BOOK!” “I’m struggling to get my maps to upload in THE BOOK THAT I WROTE!” “Amazon wants me to enlarge the margins in THE BOOK I WROTE!”

It’s all magic. It might be hard to believe that every frustrated sigh and exasperated restart of my computer is magic. But I promise you, it is.

There is an abundance of magic in doing what you love. I’ve seen it in others. My mother, shaking her head with a smile as her dance students misstep for the fifth time. (Sorry, again, Mom.) My father, unwrapping and rewrapping the same stone with unwavering enthusiasm over and over until he gets it just right. My friend, laughing as I ruin the makeup she just perfected on me.

These moments are only magical because these people are doing what they love.

And I promise you that when you love what you do, you create magic too.