Rainy days have a way of making me reflect on my life and passions and one of the biggest ones is writing.

As of today, I’m knee deep in my 10th (!) draft of the latest Corrosive Knights novel and as of this month, its been two full years since I first began writing it.  The fact that I’ve been working on this material as long as I have and remain as laser focused on getting this book cleaned up and released is proof of my love for this work and my love, in general for writing.

After this book is released?

I’ll do like I usually do, take a day or two to pat myself on the back and admire the fact that the bookshelf devoted to my works has filled up just a little bit more.  After that day or two is over, I return to my computer and begin writing my next novel.

Getting back to the topic on hand, my guess is it takes approximately three months (give or take) for me to write the first draft of a novel but, obviously, much, much more time revising and rewriting it before I feel its ready for release,

I’m not the only one.  While googling the topic of rewriting, I was struck by many of the quotes I found.  For instance,

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” Vladimir Nabokov

Another one:

“Writing a first draft is like groping one’s way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you’ve forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one’s mind comes to inhabit the material fully.”  Ted Solotaroff

Perhaps the most succinct and to the point quote I found regarding this topic comes from author Truman Capote:

Good writing is re-writing.

It is also, needless to say, a lot of work and someone like me, as passionate as I am about writing, would find it far harder to work on a novel if I still had to use a typewriter as opposed to a computer.

Mind you, I have used both.

When I was much younger and computers and word processing programs didn’t yet exist, I wrote a few stories (none good, trust me!) and found it an incredibly frustrating process.  The process of writing those works on a typewriter was slowed considerably every time you hit the wrong key or realized, mid sentence or mid-paragraph or mid-thought, you could write whatever it is you were writing a lot better better if you did this or that.  With a typewriter, you’re stuck.  You could either tear the page out or draw a line through the “bad” sentence/paragraph or you could keep going and make a note on the page that when you re-wrote it, you needed to change x or w or z.

Regardless, if I were using a typewriter today rather than a computer my latest novel, now two years in the making, would easily take twice as long if not more to finish off.

And I would have done it.

Mind you, it would not have been easy and my level of frustration would be far greater but I would have done it.

I love writing that much.

Why point all this out?

As the cliche goes, the best thing in the world is to find your passion and make something positive out of it.

Having said that, one should look oneself in the mirror and see if their passions, whatever they may be, are something that can be realized.

If your great passion is to be an Olympic swimmer but you have neither the long, lean body, the physical strength, and/or patience to spend hour after hour in a pool exercising, then chances are you’ll never accomplish that which you desire.

Similarly, if you want to be a writer and have this extraordinary idea you think would make for a great book yet day after day put off writing that book to spend time watching TV shows or playing video games or taking a walk, then chances are you’ll never get that book done.

Put in the work.  The sad fact is that even if you work extremely hard, nothing may come of it.

However, if you’re anything like me and the day comes for you to look back on your life and your accomplishments, you’ll find yourself thankful for many things.  For me, I’ll be thankful for my family.  I’ll be thankful for the friends I found along the way.  I’ll remember the good times and try hard not to dwell on the bad.

For me, I’ll look at that bookshelf which houses my works.  By then, I hope it’ll be full of wonderful works I can be proud of.  They may not make me rich and famous but their existence sure fills me with satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

Have fun at it.

Always.