Me, an author?

''For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.' '' Thomas Greenleaf Whittier.

For a very long time I have toyed with the idea of being an author, I even started college with that aspiration. I was on the path of a creative writing degree when a thought struck me: I don't need a degree to be an author. So I changed my major into something that more readily offered itself up as a wise financial decision, first history, then political science, then international affairs, and finally Nursing. It is perfectly possible to have another career and still be an author. My problem is I lack the dedication to actually finish a story. I have started a fair few, but fell far short of any semblance of a conclusion. Now I finally have a story I feel I can market and I'm stuck, how do I begin it? It's all in my head, the characters, the plot, the twist, the climax and the anticlimax, but how do I begin? And when I do figure that out, who will actually want to read it? Maybe I should approach it like a marriage, I am dedicated to that marriage til death do us part, death being representative of the conclusion of the story, so maybe this idea will give me the dedication I need. Self control and endurance are two things I lack, perhaps my first novel will be an exercise to control them and put them into practice. We'll just have to wait and see for only God knows what the future holds and he doesn't want to spoil the ending by telling us what will happen :P