Professor Beej

No, I’m not asking you to teach my illiterate self how to find meaning in the written word, rather I want to know how you find yourself gobbling up the wordy goodness you love.

NaNoWriMo is one of the few things in life I am truly ambivalent about. I see a lot of positives about the event, but the more I think about it, the less I want to have anything to do with it.

Like every other woman who went through school with frizzy hair and the label “the smart girl,” I identify strongly with Hermione Granger. I have no illusions about how clichéd this is. It’s about as original as every non-Republican professional woman with glasses believing herself to be the real-life Liz Lemon.

As I’ve been working my way through my summer reading list, I came to the realization that before I die, I want to write write a Star Wars novel. A real, licensed, fully authorized novel set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Here’s the thing: you’ll probably never make a living by writing. Even if you luck into selling a manuscript, it’s unlikely that it will even pay your mortgage. No more amateur hour, no more kid gloves, and no more training wheels. (And no more motivational platitudes, am I right?) If you don’t treat writing like the job you want it to be right now, it will never happen.