Impossible?

There's something almost impossible sounding about saying "I'm writing a book." That's a lot of words, after all. A lot. And not only do you have to have those words in your head, you have to be able to wield them, channel them, and make them sound like they fit together, interlocking puzzle pieces designed as if by Fate. But more than that, you need to have the ideas in your mind, some idea, whether it be formless or highly defined and outlined. Perhaps that's why I've been working on my book for over a year now. I haven't got enough experience in life and people to fill an entire book just yet. Though, there are authors who take two years, or more, to write a book. I don't know.

I like to say that I'm about three-quarters done with my book. "The Leaves of Autumn" I've named it. I even have a sequel planned out, almost planned, I have an outline in my mind of what I want to say in it, I think I even have a title. But first I have to finish my book.

They say a good-sized, 200-page book is about 55,000 words. Something like that, I think. My book is about 42,000. Yeah. Wow. That's a lot of words. Considering, at the end of the last sentence I'd only written just over 200 words. You see?

It's daunting, to say the least. But the idea of finishing my book, that doesn't scare me. I know I can, if not immediately. What I'm worried about is what I do when I'm done with it. Do I print it out for myself, self-publish it, or try and get it published by someone else? Do I have a friend edit it, edit it myself, let close relatives or friends read it, hoard it all to myself? I'm terrified of what I will do when I'm done with it. Because that will be a huge, long, consistent, constant phase of my life. For the past two years, all I've really wanted to write on was my book. Though I've abandoned it periodically to write short stories, to write poems, to write nothing at all, I've still come back to it. But what happens when I haven't got that to come back to? When I have to start all over again? I've never written anything as long as that. Never. It was the first time I ever finished a story, or extended one this much; it marked the beginning of the times when I could finish a story. Up until then, when I really began writing my book, I'd never even written poems beyond five or seven stanzas. I couldn't go that distance, in my words, on paper. I didn't have the patience, I didn't have the experience, I didn't have the time to want to perservere. I can't tell how many stories I opted to make one chapter when they could likely have gone on for ages, if I'd had the desire.

But perhaps I simply hadn't read enough books, hadn't done enough things, hadn't seen enough in my life, thought enough, experienced enough, to be able to write. By now, I feel as though I've experienced the entire range of emotions, truly experienced them, to be able to write them more comfortably. Now I don't have to be as afraid of messing up a character's reaction to something, because now I'm more aware of how to feel and react myself. I've observed people over the years, learning how they interact and act and move and live. Perhaps, I simply hadn't observed enough.

Then I stop and wonder, have I still not observed enough? Do I only think I know how to make my characters live? Is it only a false sense of wisdom that drives my writing?

And what will I do, if when I finish my book, people read it, and it simply isn't as good as I ever thought it was, as I ever thought it could be, as they thought it might be. What if it isn't believable, or realistic, or seeable. What if my characters are silly, pointless, fake? And what if it's obvious - that I don't know what I'm talking about? Do I?

I don't know. I honestly don't know, and I'm afraid to find out.