It's always dark in the beginning...

So... I'm writing a book. I know. I know what you're thinking. Oh, lord someone else who is absolutely ordinary who thinks they might be one of the rare people with the special gift of writing. It's almost like winning the lottery really. I mean, I guess anyone can write but rarely are they any good and even more rare there are so few successful. But it's weird, it's like last year it just hit me; all these books I read with all these great details and story's ~ I could do that. I've been doing that in my mind my whole life. Imaging stories and playing them out in my head. every time I wished I hadn't said something I'd replay back in my mind and replay it the way I wished it had gone. Or things I wish would happen like the guy I was in love with all through high school coming to me on the day of graduation to tell me he'd loved me all along. I could set the scene, know the dialogue and I could make my own heart swoon just playing it out in my mind. So back to why I decided to set up a blog. So I started writing my book last summer I can't quite remember how the idea came to me I was thinking about twilight, yeah the multi-billion dollar industry started by mom of three Stephenie Meyer. I loved her books on a level I'd never felt before. I was Bella in her book, I was there. It was me she was writing about. I watched Stephenie's interview in the extra features on the twilight dvd. How it all began with one scene from a dream and it blossomed from there. She'd never completed college, which I could relate to but no doubt had more education than my one semester. She was a stay at home mom of three boys, the youngest being a year old. My son at the time I started writing was six months. She wrote like crazy after her boys went to bed, I wrote what I could in my notebook at my kitchen table after my husband and baby went to bed. I felt that she could have been me. and with all the day dreaming and imagining that I'd done in my life I could put it all on paper and maybe, just maybe others would enjoy it as much as I'd enjoyed Stephenie Meyers books. That's what I wanted. If money came from it that'd be a bonus but to give someone else a thrill through my stories, that would be success in my book. So I wrote every night, in the beginning my husband would ask me what I was doing. I felt silly, I didn't want to tell him. I thought he'd laugh at me. Then finally one night when he asked again what I was doing and I brushed him off with another "nothing" he sighed and walked away frustrated. I decided to tell him prepared to be laughed at. And I told him he could. He could laugh at me and I didn't care. Isn't that horrible? I expected him to laugh because I probably would have laughed at someone else had they told me that they were writing a book. I deflated it from the beginning, told him that it was nothing big, just a hobby and it would probably never go anywhere it was just something I wanted to do; a creative outlet. He looked at me sincerely and said "okay" and kissed me goodnight. No teasing, no laughing just... support. How great is he? I'll answer that. The greatest I keep finding out. So again back to why I started this blog. I hopped on ehow.com and looked up "how to improve your writing" because I feel that my struggle is my education and my vocabulary. I'm sure my grammer and punctuation needs improvement as well but lets just take one day at a time. But ehow suggested I get a blog. write daily. write for twenty minutes with out correting or stopping or going back and changing anything. So I've already failed at that because I can't stand to move on to the next word and not correct a word that's spelled incorrectly. But then not only did I have to start a blog but I had to come up with a signature so I decided I didn't want to use my real name and I didn't want to do anything cheesy like "so n so's mom". Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my child more than life itself but this, this is for me and only me. So I've not connected my name to it in anyway but wanted my signature to have something to do with writing. I racked my brain and then walking across my kitchen to the fridge it hit me "Scribbling Scarlet" - perfect! Then the pressure of what to call my blog! For this I racked my brain even harder. I wanted to name it after a place because after all it will be the place I escape to when I need to deflate or empty my thoughts like trash. Shangri-la? No. Pandora's box? I had to look that up because I couldn't remember the story behind it, yeah, only evil comes from Pandoras box so that was not fitting. So finally I start looking up synonyms for a secret place and when I get to the S's I see Sanctum, "Scarlets Sanctum!" How perfect? It fit with my signature and everything. So this is where I start. The beginning. But It's always dark in the beginning. God sat in the dark heavens creating, planets, stars and light. So that it was what I will hopefully do; create stars and light. And this place, my "sanctum" will hopefully be where I improve. Improve my writing style and my vocabulary. Practice makes perfect so on top of trying to work on my book I need to blog for twenty minutes a day about nothing. The things so far that are bothering me about my own writing is my style I  guess. I feel like Eddy Haskel writing, all goody-goody. why is that? Am I turning my characted into a square? Surely I hope not. I feel like I over detail. I love to detail and I can see the scene playing out in my head but when I try to put it on paper or the monitor in this case the words don't flow like I'm lacking the words. I know how the scene makes me feel and how I want the reader to feel but the words aren't matching up, their lacking. I'm missing the most important tools. So hopefully between reading more books that I will enjoy and be able to study and practicing writing here I'll improve and figure it out. Don't get me wrong, I am under NO delusion that I'm going to turn out a perfect novel right off the bat but I don't want people reading it thinking a thirteen year old turned it out. You know? So wish me luck and hopefully five years from now and many best sellers later I'll be looking back at this, my first blog thinking I remember that hopeless feeling I had when I first sat down at my kitchen table and wrote this as my son was busy watching his favorite movie just so I could have those twenty minutes. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I guess I'll be back after he falls asleep.