Make it Happen

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A few things are especially significant to me right now.
1. When I was eight years old, I asked Santa Claus for a Barnes&Noble gift certificate. True story.
2. When I was seven, I wrote, printed, bound and sold books. Mostly to my mom, but still—wrote, printed, bound and sold.
3. When I was 20 years old, I met Ryan Olaveson. We promised each other a lot of things over the next year or two, but one of those promises is engraved on the inside of his wedding band: Dream big.
4. My dream has always been to be an author.
and 5. I've never done anything about it.

Until now. I've been talking about writing a book for years now, perusing the aisles at Barnes&Noble and Deseret Book and Borders and dreaming of seeing my own book there. I've read books by authors younger than me and thought I could do that. I've read blog posts by authors chronicling their book tours and signings, thinking Someday that will be me. And here I've sat, dreaming and dreaming and doing nothing about it.

Then 2012 happened. I started making myself come up with (boring) plots. I wrote down silly premises in my notebook because even a silly premise is a premise. I came up with all kinds of them, talking to friends about what is overdone and what I could feasibly write. And then the other night, it came to me.

Premise. Plot. Theme. Characters. The works.

I have a lot of work ahead of me. The odds of it ever being published are dismal. But my goal isn't to be the next J.K. Rowling (though let's be honest, that'd be nice), but it is to write a book. My first book.

I don't know how to write a book. But I don't know how to be a mother either, and I'm figuring that one out.

Here goes nothing.