What It Takes To Be An Author

In my opinion, the question "What does it take to be an author?" is by far one of the most under thought-out and unanswered questions of would-be authors and writers.  And I think that that is how it should be.  Personally, if I had known about the hundreds of headaches and migraines I would go through, the endless hours of editing and rewriting, the throwing away of good ideas that I fell in love with for greater ideas, and the writer's block that so frequently beset me, I don't know if I would have started the journey to becoming an author and bringing my story to life.

So, what does it take to be an author?  It takes loving your characters/idea/story enough to go through all of those trials and keep writing.  Writing, after all, is the key.  Your characters can progress in your mind, they can learn and grow, can go on adventures and have fascinating experiences, yet if none of that ever reaches paper (or your computer screen) then the story is left a dream in your mind.

 “An unwritten story is a ghost without a soul; even the most poorly written story has a soul.” –Jason Paull

Writing does not always produce the results that you want but it ALWAYS produces results.  These results, although frequently 'trash canned', get you in the mood to write.  I can't remember how many times I deleted entire paragraphs, even chapters, that I had just finished writing to rewrite them because by the time I was done I had already rethought how it should go.  As the story progressed in my mind and events happened and new characters made their way into the story there came a need to change what I had already written.  I would never had reached the end had I not started writing in the first place despite having to go back and change and rewrite the majority of my story.

“Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.” –Ray Bradbury