May
28
Once upon a time, my favorite thing on warm summery evenings was sitting around with a cold, sweating Pacifico (or five) and a good book. I wouldn’t move from my chair unless a bathroom break or a particularly dedicated mosquito drove me from it, and I’d sometimes lean back and just look up at the sky, filled with quiet movements and sounds.
Life is different in about a million ways now. Gone are the lazy, sodden days of buzzed inertia and meandering contemplation, replaced by frenzied noise and activity and DO and GO and TRY.
I’ll take it, though. Abso-fuckin-lutely.
May
27
I think the cool thing to do is to wait until you’ve finished a book, maybe even found a publisher, before announcing that it exists. At least this seems to be what I’m familiar with—someone will all of a sudden be like, here’s my big news I’ve been so excited to tell you all about! I wrote this 167,000 word novel in my spare time and if you’d like to come see me on my book tour I’ll be in Atlanta July 5th. Oh by the way I also had another child and I lost 50 pounds, now we’re all caught up!
I’m not that cool, though, so instead I’ll tell you that I have maybe started a book. Mmmaybe. I don’t know. I’ve written, like, three-quarters of a chapter. Well, assuming I know how long a chapter is, because really, I DON’T. You know what I know about writing books? Huh! Good god, y’all. Absolutely nothing.
After years of muddling around thinking about the goal of book-writing but not writing one solitary word, I finally just opened up a text document the other day and said to myself, self, you are going to start typing, and whatever comes out is IT. I’m not going to get hung up on trying to think of some creative new spin on a collection of salty parenting anecdotes, I’m not going to tell myself that I have to have the entire story figured out, I’m not going to think about what has a better chance of being marketable, I’m not going to worry if one of the characters is has a terrible name, I’m not going to spend five days mouthbreathing over a good opening line.
What I ended up with is the beginning of a story that I have no idea if I can finish. It’s not about parenting or zombies or a 35-year-old woman living in Seattle with her family, the only three subjects I figure I’m semi-qualified to write about. The main character is a teenager, which may be a horrible mistake because, uh, see also: 35-year-old woman.
(JB: “So what’s your book going to be about?”
Me: “Um, I’m not sure yet. A sort of young adult coming-of-age story, maybe.”
JB: “Like Twilight?”
Me: “…”
JB: “That’s young adult, right?”
Me: “Okay, then yes. It’s exactly the same! Yes, I think this will spiral into a massive pop culture phenomenon and I’ll write three more books and all four will be on the best-seller list at the same time and I’ll sell 22 million copies and a movie franchise in one year alone.”
JB: “Nice. But are there vampires?”
Me: “No.”
JB: “Ohhh. Well, then.”)
Writing something that’s supposed to contain an actual plot makes me feel as though I’ve gotten behind the wheel of a car I am only barely capable of driving. There are some roadside attractions I have in mind, but how do I get there? I can’t even steer this fucking thing. As for the end of the road, I can’t begin to see it. It’s covered in fog. Or locusts. Or a giant pile of jam! Who knows!
I’m worried that I’ll get a decent way into this thing and decide it’s just too awful to continue. I’m worried that only being able to work on it in little tiny stolen moments of time here and there will make for a disjointed, crappy storyline. I’m worried that it would be crappy even if I went to some special nurturing writer’s retreat in the woods where people spoke in hushed voices and we all had Silent Creative Totem Animal Time from 9-6. I’m worried that if I fail, I’ll lose that little dream that has lived inside me for so long, the part of me beneath all the self-sabotage that secretly thinks I could maybe write a book someday, and what then?
Also, I’m pretty sure my main character has a terrible name.
But anyway, it’s started. We’ll see where it goes.
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