Don't Follow My Lead

Welcome to my home!

I don’t have a pen name, so for the time being, just know my initials RM.   Maybe I’ll use a pen name to keep some sense of privacy, or eventually I will let you know who I am.   So I guess, that should be my first post about.

I’m a 30 something average guy.   Average problems, average life.  In fact, I thought of naming this website something along the lines of Average You, or Just Another Person.  But I think we all need a little sense that we are more than that.  We are special to a group of people, or at least to someone.  We want a level of validation that we matter, right? If not, then why are we here?

So, why are we here? Why should you be interested in my blog? – Well, I don’t have a compelling reason, except that I always wanted to write. And that’s where it gets interesting.   Because I know I don’t want to write a thousand books like Dean Koontz or create a fantasy world a la Tolkien.  I know my limitations, and I know that’s not what I want to write.   I just want to believe that I can write a few a stories and that a few people will like them.  What genre? Well I don’t know.   Short stories or novels?  I don’t know.  Contemporary times or past? I don’t know.

What the fuck do you know then?  -I don’t know, that’s why I named it, Don’t Follow My Lead.   I have never taken a writing course.  In fact, English is not even my native tongue.  I have been in the U.S. for a while now though.  And growing up, I didn’t like reading.  It wasn’t until AFTER college that my interest in reading started growing.   I’ve always been more of a movie, or music lover.  As I started reading, couldn’t help but feel that certain stories where taking shape in my head.  Certain scenarios I would see them play out, and at first I thought they should be maybe a movie, after all that’s my first love.

But I noticed that, the level of detail and emotion of these scenes went a little deeper than what a film can capture.   They were more complex, and I started saving these scenes in my head.  And I would try to write them down, but not much has come up from them.   In fact I have forgotten some of them before they ended in paper.   And that’s where I guess is the crux of the matter for me.  Maybe my stories won’t hold the interest of every person that reads them.  Hell, as much as I love certain of my authors, I know they are not love by everyone, and they make a living out of this!   So, again, is not that you should read this stories or that they’ll be beacons of your life.   But hopefully, just hopefully they’ll brighten your day enough for you to come back.

Does that mean you are going to give me a story per day? – NO! Are you fucking insane? you know how much time that would take?  I still have to do my day to day work and pay my bills.   But I have good friends, that always push me to be better and to follow up on my ideas.   I have a supportive girlfriend too, that wants me to succeed and is also a writer, that actually has been publish.

So a good friend of mine, who also aspire to be a writer herself, put my attention towards this site:  www.nanowrimo.org. The National Novel Writing Month, in it, you will be part of a network of people that want to write too, and for the 30 days and 30 nights of November you are expected to write, and write until you have a very, very rough draft of something that kind of looks like a novel.

Since I’ve never taken a writing class, and all I have to follow is my own guidance, then I decided to do it in blog form.   That way I can write at my heart content, and see the pitfalls I’ll have to drag myself out of.   For the last few weeks, and as November draws nearer  I’ve been thinking on what exactly what I want to do with this blog, is not finished by any means, and if you want to add your 2 cents I’ll listen (can’t guarantee I’ll follow though).

I’ll be posting my ideas for my stories, I have one, that I have a pretty good idea on how it goes, I just don’t see any of the finer details, that actually make a story a novel, and I’m hoping that through this process I can unraveled this gumbo of words and make something that resembles a readable tell.

Wish me luck as I embark on this journey, and who knows, maybe you’ll be the CO  (Commanding Officer) in my tell, and see if I can sail this baby….or hit an iceberg.