January 13th, 2010
A year past, a year to come
It’s been more than a year since I started to humor the idea of writing a book.
I’ve never been real big on motivation, but the whole idea of becoming an author hit me fast and hard. I remember the first few weeks being frantic, like the ideas were pouring out of me faster than I was able to catch them. Even now, I’ve got about 7 or 8 plots floating around in my head; and while I like every one of them to the point that I can’t decide which direction to go, they are all missing the same thing – and ending. Creating a sufficient enough conflict and having it end in an interesting way seems to be my weak point, and it makes all of the ideas I have feel like wispy strings blowing in the wind. But that hasn’t stopped me from brainstorming about everything else.
I have a very distinct memory of telling my mother the idea for my book – I was pacing frantically back and forth in the kitchen, my arms flailing in the air, and my mother listened silently while she sat in her car. We were both on our lunch hour, and I’m pretty sure I babbled on for the full sixty minutes. It was an amazing rush to finally speak my ideas out loud, and it was only made better by the fact that she LIKED my ideas for the story. Even at the beginning I was already mulling over different options for the story, and it was nice to hear her feedback on what she thought worked the best.
I think it was around March that I convinced myself that I needed to purchase a Mini laptop (the same one I’m typing on now) so that I could have some way to write in “privacy.” R is supportive of the idea of me writing a book, but he doesn’t want to know anything about it – not the plot, or the characters, nor how far along I am – and I’m assuming this is because he doesn’t want to risk saying anything that might hurt my feelings. And I get that. R is a blunt perfectionist, much like how I can be at times (and, especially, like how I USED to be – to a sickeningly annoying point), so I appreciate the fact that him keeping his distance his probably his way of avoiding saying things that I may, inevitably, take personally. Do I wish I could share my ideas with him? Would it be nice if he could help me work through the writer’s block I have for conflicts and resolutions? Sure. But, then again, I think I’d rather get through this on my OWN, and let my ideas take flight in the direction that works best for ME. I know I can do this without anyone guiding my way. I want to walk into the jungle of my thoughts alone and come out the other side with something to show for it.
The laptop was a great purchase, though – it’s served its purpose well. I have a few good memories of waking up early on a weekend morning, before R was awake, and going to the guest bedroom to write. I would make myself comfortable on the bed and listen to music (me and Peter Gabriel got REAL close) while I wrote as much as I could convince myself to. There were even a few weeknights that I did the same thing, despite being dead tired from work.
But, like everything, my motivation and inspiration comes in bursts. I’ve had long periods of downtime over the past year, where I would go months without writing a thing. And then, randomly, something would cross my mind and I couldn’t help but write it down. Sometimes what I wrote were ideas I had come up with months ago and was only now finding the correct way to go about it, and other times it was something completely different that didn’t fit with anything I had already laid out. Back stories, flash backs, details of the characters – I’m at the point where I KNOW I would like to devote the first chapter to a back story, something that sets the stage for the rest of the book, and now I’m facing the challenge of picking one from THREE possible options.
If I were to put every word I’ve ever written into a single word document, I’d be impressed if it passed 100 pages – or, hell, maybe even 50 – but after some debate, I’ve decided that’s not the point. I need to stop focusing on how much I write, and focus on WHAT I write. I need to continue writing out everything that comes to mind, as clear as I can make it, and add another string to my collection in the wind. Maybe one day I’ll get lucky and finally write something that ties it all together, but I’ll probably only stumble across that by continuing to WRITE.
After about five months of taking a “break”, I’m finally starting to work on the book again… and the only real drawback is that I don’t like anything I wrote a year ago. Naturally. Of course I wouldn’t like it! That would be EASY! And easy seems to be something that doesn’t exist in my life, but I’ll get through it. I know I’ll do it eventually, and I’ll do it right… but it does sort of suck to be back at the bottom of the same mountain I’ve been clawing at for the past twelve months.
One way or another, I WILL find my way to the other side.