The good news is that I have made a nice start to the novel. I've got an outline, chapter summaries for the first few chapters, a nice chunk of background info (world building sort of things and character summaries) and most of chapters one and two written.
Nope, didn't win NaNoWriMo this year - and I didn't expect to.
I expected it to be a kick in the ass to start writing down ideas that could fill a novel, and it was that. I also knew the combination of the emotional roller coaster I've been on, along with my fear of failure was a rich petri dish for procrastination to flourish. So my goal was just to start, just see I could get something done, even when I felt not so great. And possibly see where my procrastination temptations lie. I can't say house keeping is usually so alluring I can't resist it - but when the choice is between that and trying to figure out the perfect words to describe a scene, well, let's just say my house looked awesome in November. Also, I am glad Candy Crush has a limit on lives.
My actual goal is to have a rough at least 80% done story by the end on January, making this a 3 month jog instead of a 1 month sprint. It's just more realistic for where I am. So while I feel, yeah, I kind of was lame in making writing my priority in November, the 3 month goal works. I'm not giving up; I'm taking it at my own pace. The goal isn't to hurry. It's to finish.
So I've actually kept up a semblance of a blog for at least a couple of months now, even though I still don't think I've really found a good "voice" for it.
Is this a Pagan blog? There are so many great ones out there, who really needs another?
A random crap that happens in my life blog? I think I've ended up defaulting a lot of the time to this, but ultimately, that isn't what I was going for.
A writing blog? Well, I did start it as a place to experiment a bit with my writing, but I've been a bit shy about putting stuff out there. Part of me worries stuff I write will be just awful so I'll only end up embarrassing myself. The other part worries that if any of this is actually any good, some idiot will come along and steal it.
I shelved the question for a little bit by throwing myself into some long overdue basement renovation. I promised the kids ages ago this would get done and as August wound down, it seemed as good of a time as any. My mother made a huge fuss over it over course, as if I were single-handedly demolishing a square block in Center City Philly and then rebuilding skyscrapers from metal I had forged myself (well, the wall texture paint compound was kind of heavy for me to lift, I managed just fine). But there was something therapeutic about it; not just getting one long overdue project I had procrastinated on near completion but the creative process of painting the faux stone work (it's supposed to resemble a castle wall), of picking out the right decorations that have been gathering dust in our basement (sword replicas! coats of arms! fake torches! An Asian scroll!) and making something cozy from what had once been just another arachnid sanctuary (don't worry, said arachnids have been gently encouraged to skitter to the laundry room or discretely take shelter behind some of the second hand furniture that's been moved down there). I took a lot of joy in that creative process.
I know that when I finally get really going with one of the bigger writing projects I have in mind, I'll feel that same joy in creation. There is still the worry of "what if it sucks?" creeping around the back of my mind with writing that certainly wasn't involved in the basement project. Hell, if I just threw a TV and some folding chairs down there, my son would still use it to escape his sister for a bit - there was no way my "audience" would have hated the result. I suppose maybe the answer is to stop thinking of "audiences" and start thinking of what makes me happy.
The next two Fridays I'll be posting bits of short fiction I've written. These aren't anything fancy, but more like writing exercises I'm OK with having the general internet see. I'd love feedback on them if you get a moment.
The following is an article I submitted for publication. The theme was a big change that occurred in the writer's life. I never heard back from the people I submitted it to and it's been several months, so I decided to pop it here. Enjoy.
This may sound a bit kooky, but one of the big changes that
happened in my life was overcoming my fear of dogs. I remember when it started.
We had a neighbor who kept, what was to my 5 year old eyes, a massive dog of indeterminate
breed. My mom pitied it and so from time to time she’d feed it scraps. One day I
went with her, and the dog, overjoyed at the possibility of a snack broke
through whatever was keeping it staked and pulled a Dino Flintstone on me.
“I’m going to die of rabies,” I told my pediatrician
solemnly.
I had recently seen Old Yeller and what stuck was not the
bittersweet story of a boy and his dog, but the idea that any time, when you
least expect it, dogs can turn on you.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
He was used to my precocious babbling and to my mother’s
nervous streak. This was the woman who brought me in every time I sniffled. Of
course she’d want a scrape checked out (never mind that the scrape was caused
by my tripping on the sidewalk – the dog itself didn’t harm me beyond
subjecting me to its breath). The doctor assured us nothing was broken, I
didn’t have rabies and that was that.
Except it wasn’t. From then on, the sight of any dog got me
screaming. The sound of jingling keys sounded so much like dog tags to me that
I’d actually flinch if I heard them. I didn’t learn to ride a bike because I
was petrified I wouldn’t be able to pedal fast enough to escape any dogs that
might be nearby.
“I have a phobia,” I later told my pediatrician.
“Uh-huh”
I don’t know if he ever talked to my parents about dealing
with it, but nothing really was done. I coped by becoming an indoors child,
only going out if one of my parents was near me. By college I was OK if the dog
was tiny and on a leash. But I’d still make an excuse to be elsewhere, fast.
College was where I met my husband, a terrific guy and an
unapologetic dog lover. We discussed everything before getting married, our thoughts
on religion, kids, finances – but we never discussed dogs. I should have
realized this was going to be an issue. He’d get the same misty look over a
puppy that some people get over babies. No dog would go un-scratched in his
presence. So when he started asking about dogs, I let him know I’d rather have
a root canal during labor. Not one to give up easily he’d bring it up
regularly, wise enough to drop it if I was getting too twitchy, but always
looking for a way to bring it up if he could.
“So…corgis are cute,” he said casually after watching an anime series featuring one.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
Well, they were
kind of cute, with their little legs and fox-like appearance. I told him I might consider a corgi. But just because
I thought they were cute as a cartoon didn’t mean I’d be OK with them in
actuality. I reminded him I’d still be nervous. It didn’t matter. He took the
small bone I threw him and began Campaign Corgi in earnest.
One day we happened to be driving by a dog rescue. He
pleaded with me to go in to look. I told him that unless there was an actual
corgi in there, I was going to turn around and go back to the car. So of
course, there in a cage with a giant St Bernard, was a wee corgi puppy.
Triumphantly, my husband walked over to the man coordinating things and asked
to see the corgi. I’m still not exactly sure how it happened, but somehow they
got me to sit down and put that tiny corgi in my lap. I remember still being
nervous. The dog was trembling too, right up until the moment she was on my lap.
And then she looked and me, I looked at her and we both stopped shaking.
In the almost 13 I’ve had Faye, she’s taught me a lot of
things. One, I’m actually something of a nature lover when not terrified. I
can’t imagine not being outside at least a little every day. Two, I’m a really
dog person! Three, it’s sad when fear keeps you from being everything you could
become. Four, love has a way of breaking fear.
So once a year the hubby, the kids and I pack up our stuff and head up to the mountains to spend a long weekend up with his side of the family. I guess I'm pretty lucky that I get along fairly well with them, at least most of the time. I'm pretty open about who I am with them; I've never really hidden the fact I'm Pagan from them. And they accept it, although there is good-natured joking all around. Yesterday morning, when I emerged fresh from the shower with the water vapor from my sopping wet curls very visibly rising up away from my head, cameras got taken out accompanied by cries of "Wow, proof she's a witch!".
They aren't terribly subtle folks. They can be a bit loud and a bit opinionated. But they can also can be very supportive. When 2 of my nieces decided to try the zip lines, they all turned out en mass, whooping and cheering them on as they climbed up and zipped across the to the other side of of the pond. Somewhere, out in the Atlantic, baby dolphins may have heard them and been encouraged to rise to the surface to get their first puff of air. My nieces, reared all their lives in this boisterous environment, drank in the adulation.
I'm not sure if I actually said anything or if my husband noticed the look of skepticism mixed with curiosity on my face. Unlike the rest of his family, he knows there are times where a quiet sentence said at the right time trumps a legion of cheering. He just looked at me and said, "You know, for someone who seems to like to link herself to kestrels and other sorts of airy creatures, this is probably as close to flying as you are going to get."
I hate it when he's right.
I was never a daredevil as a kid. A huge part of that was my mother's doing, who was doing helicopter parenting before it was "in". I had very little trust in my body to respond in any sort of coordinated, physical way until a lot later in life, and even then, there has to be music involved or I'm pretty much a klutz. That seemed like a really long climb to the top of just the little zip line. And I wasn't sure I was ready to throw myself off a perfectly good platform, even if I had seen kindergarteners and senior citizens doing it and surviving just moments before. But the hubby knew pretty much the only argument that would make me even consider it. So I quietly said, "Fine, but this is the deal. Just you gets to see, no giant horde of relatives." He nodded.
I'm still not entirely able to verbalize exactly why I didn't want everyone there. A decent part of it involves my pride to be sure. I knew I wasn't going to be anywhere as slick as my triathlete brother-in-law or even my giddy nieces when I went on. I didn't want an audience for that. There is also something that just personally makes me feel kind of twitchy about over-zealous cheering over something small children can do without too much of a fuss over it. I carefully planned out the perfect time to go - there was actually no one waiting ahead of me to go on when I went over - and after saying a quick prayer to offer up this small act of fear conquering to honor my deities, I began the climb up. The climbing really did stink, and all my old baggage about being the smallest and weakest kid in my gym class hit me every time I raised another sweaty hand to pull myself up just a bit further or I raised another shaking leg to another foothold and push myself up. I was very, very far from smooth or even just calm when I got to the top of that platform. The camp councilor was supremely patient with me even though it took me a minute to convince myself the equipment could bear my weight (which is silly - I'm fairly petite). I finally was convinced everything was OK and motioned for her to let go.
It was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. The second time I did it (I pretty much ran back to get on line when I was done) was even better than the first. The next day I tried the big zip line and that climb was really bad - but it was a long trip on the zip line and that made it totally worth it, even though I reek of Icy Hot this morning. I've told my husband that next vacation we need to have access to a zip line, and that I want to hit the local rock gym so that climb won't be quite as awful. The hubby was right - it was just like flying. And everyone deserves a chance to fly, right?
