And So it Begins...

I have begun the novel.

With actual words. Nay, pages.


Okay, not a lot of pages so far. I am currently stuck on character names. Not the main ones - all the ancillary characters necessary to weave this thing together. I am baking without all the ingredients. Just kidding - I'm baking for real because it's nearly Thanksgiving and that's one of so very many distractions from the grind of creating pages. It was the pies on Monday and today it will be tarte tatin.  In my mind, this long holiday weekend will be crammed with opportunity to build the early chapters and continue my incomplete roadmap for the later chapters.

In truth, I will Netflix and snack. I will nap. I will lose a half day researching deer stands or North Carolina history or vacation rental properties. I'll feel guilty about it. And yet, I will also be excited, my brain sending me little nudges. Add a dog. Let's learn more about the fisherman. This is a great way to introduce a little background since she spent time here as a child. I should emphasize the contrasts here. That internal well of the subconscious is flowing ideas, hoping to nourish the fallow rows of my too-sparse outline.

So, the laundry will pile up along with clutter from half-completed sort-for-donation efforts in nearly every room. I'm not one of those writers who has all their shit together, the clean house, the stocked fridge, and the completed pages. I'll get one of those, not all three. I'm choosing pages.

As much as it sounds like I'm a complete mess and my project is doomed for failure, I actually feel pretty good about it. I've learned a lot since the last one. The short stories and the essays and the readings have all built skills and provided ideas about my options as I choose how to tell this story. Reading has become inspiring and exciting again and not a reason to feel insecure about my own work. Teaching reminds me to do the work and embrace revision. Providing encouragement to my students helps me to remember to give myself a break when I worry that this house of cards will all fall down and I'll have no plan.

So, if we are friends and you see that I'm in my writing cave, cheer me on silently, knowing that I'm chipping away at a huge block of stone as I try and shape it into something thrilling and funny and real. Forgive my mess. Understand that I will forgo real clothes for my jammies or sweats or whatever because I had to get the words down before that shower. Are you working on something too? Plan to meet me at the coffee shop or the library so we can work on our stuff.

Please don't ask me to explain the story to you. It really does deflate the sails. I have to hold it in for now, keeping my options to change course as open as the journey permits.

For all you fellow writers out there, may the coffee be plentiful and your own internal well overflow with possibility.

I'll be in my writing cave.