Writing Success: Rebekah Reads' Creative Mindset Revealed

I wanted to write a book. So, I did.

Creative writing has always been a passion of mine. I love telling stories. I love creating worlds. I hear, feel, and see everything I write. It's like, I can practically taste the food they eat. I can feel the heat of the fire. I hear the creaking of the old, arthritis ridden kneecaps as I watch the storm from the aluminum window that my characters look though. And it's beautiful.

With that, I have started COUNTLESS stories over the years. I honestly have no idea how many stories have made their way through my mind. Like a full-blown, start-to-finish plot, with a climax and character development and emotion. Stories that developed from dreams (or nightmares) that cast a new vision on my day-to-day life. Ideas that I have in the shower, car, or while I vacuum.

Stories of children lost at sea.

A sci-fi about the human race when the oceans become too acidic.

Friends who get tangled up in a secret society.

A woman whose husband dies.

Two boys who grew up in the jungle.

Twin girls who are mirror twins.

A boy who loses his mother to addiction.

A woman with anxiety and depression, who takes Prozac every day, has an incredible family, just trying to navigate life... oh, and she becomes a freaking author.

I don't know where it came from, or how it started. Maybe it's because I feel so, so deeply. I connect with human emotion on a level I'm not convinced anyone else understands.

For example, as I write this, I am out-processing an employee at work who is retiring. They've worked here for 38 years and get to spend the rest of their life doing whatever the hell they want.

I don't know them. I've hardly talked to them. But when they gave me their access badge, and said their final goodbye, I saw it. The deep, profound look in their eyes. The end of something huge. The beginning of something bigger. Their entire life, wrapped up with a little bow, ending with handing the thirty-year-old millennial a badge that they gave the best years of their life for.

And I felt all of it.

The excitement. The fear. The loathing. The joy and ecstasy. The regret. The knowing. The hope. The adventure. The sadness.

I feel it. And I want you to feel it too.

I have two goals for my writing career (side note: holy cow that's weird to say. Writing career? No way. No freaking way that's possible. But... maybe?)

Okay, let me change it. I have two goals for my writing journey:

1) Inspire other to do what scares them.

I told my mother this morning as she waits for her copy of my book to come in the mail, an author's greatest dream is also their nightmare; that people will actually read their book. Like, of course I want people to read it! But then... oh my God... people will read it.

But you know what? Screw it. Some people will hate it. Some people will hate me. But I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing it for me. And you. The people who love me.

So, just do it. Screw everyone else and just do it. As Toni Lodge says, "Start the F***ing blog!"

2) Write, not to tell a story, but to feel a story.

I struggle so much to express how I feel sometimes. Writing helps me. When I write, I can feel everything. I hope that as you read my words, you feel it too. Feel the good and the bad. Laugh and cry. Smile and cringe. Feel everything.

If you've made it this far, you rock. Thanks :)

I look forward to writing more and telling my story though the eyes of my fictitious characters.

Happy reading.

Always,

Bekah