Is the House that NaNoWriMo Built Burning?
From scammers to sexual grooming to promoting AI, what is going on?
When I tell someone I’m a full-time writer, 4 out of 5 of the immediate replies are, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” or, “I have a great idea for a novel.” I smile and nod before quickly changing the subject. Everyone, it seems, has dreams of “getting in the writing game.”
Last month, for the second time this summer, an emergency landed me in the hospital. As I waited to see a doctor, I chatted with my attending nurse about writing professionally. Another nurse, standing in the hallway outside of my room, poked her head in and without introducing herself said, “Oh! I should talk to you about the novel I want to write.”
Writing a complete, well-crafted story is hard work, even for those of us who have a modicum of talent and have dedicated large chunks of our lives to the craft of fiction writing. The people who live with dreams of writing the Great American Novel understand this on some level, but still live with fully-formed stories struggling to break free from the confines of their imagination.
Inside even the most analytical minds, a dormant creative spirit often slumbers. Many people harbor dreams of writing “someday.” Dreams that grow brittle and shatter before ever being…
