Winner!

Just validated my word count for Camp NaNoWriMo. Over 31k words edited and revised in April for my upcoming Young Adult novel, In the Middle.  
Can't wait to share it with you guys!  It's a cool, creepy story... but that's all I'm going to say right now. I don't want to give away too much.  :-)

Third Time's a Charm

On July 22, 2011 I met Claire Darling for the very first time.  At the time, Claire was an 18-year-old high school student by morning, horse trainer by every spare hour after that.  She quickly became a friend of mine because she's sarcastic and self-deprecating, a good soul.  Two-and-a-half years and three books later, she and I are pretty tight.  I've fought for her to fall in love and I cried with her (over and over) when her heart was shattered into pieces.  She's struggled and she's endured.  She's no Super Woman, but that's why she's real.  Well, real is a relative term, but you know what I mean.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to adore good guys Liam and Graham.  I've loved to hate all those shady characters--Rayna, Rowan, and Maureen.  Maybe you've found the strings of your emotions tugged by one or more of them, too.  If that's true for you, then I thank you for investing yourself in my humble words.

There's so much I want to say, but so much I can't because I don't want to give anything away.  That, and I'm so overwhelmed by the day that I don't know where to begin and where to end.  

Maybe Liam says it best in the last paragraph I wrote today that brought the third and final novel to a close:  

"With any luck, tomorrow his big heart will eclipse anything he lacks. At least, this is what I pray as I stare out at the stars strung in the deep blue. I want him to find his own place to belong, because I’ve found that place for myself, a home, and I’m homesick."


Like Liam, I've found a home in Hope Creek and I'm already homesick. 

Thanks, guys, for everything you've given me.  You'll never know what you've done for me.

Right Away, Great Captain!

I'm guilty of turning on an album and leaving it on repeat for days.  Months, even.  My husband hates this about me because he and I tend to have very opposite tastes in music (him:  Anything Country.  Me:  Florence + the Machine, which is totally a genre, by the way!).  Though it's not working at the moment, we had an iPod jack in our room where we could plug in our iPods or phones and play our music over speakers in the ceiling or on the porch.

At some point while Moe was sick, I turned on Right Away, Great Captain and left it on.  I remember walking away from  his still-warm but lifeless body on the grass and wandering back to the house wondering what could possibly be left without him.  The only thing to do was crawl into bed in the middle of a sunny day and cry.  Right Away, Great Captain crooned me to sleep on that horrible, beautiful day.  I let it play on in the days to follow because it held Moe and I together, this thread of mournful music.

Tonight I'm getting ready to say good-bye to one of my characters and I don't want to because it's like letting my boy slip through my fingers again.  My heart hurts and it feels right to play Right Away, Great Captain! again to pull myself back into the grief.  

It's no more than two lines into the first song before I can see him stumbling and feel his slick neck against my cheek.  The curl of dread tightens in my belly as I watch the vet check his pupils and slowed breathing over and over and over until he is satisfied and I know it's done.  I'm broken, with pieces that will never go back together quite right.

Sixteen months and it surprises me how sharp the pain still is and how little it takes to bring me back to that good-bye.  That is the power and wonder of art.

Oh.  How will I ever do this?

Questioning

Four months ago I sent an e-mail ending my business relationship with the publisher courting me.  It wasn't easy to say no to a sure thing.  Every day I wonder if I made the wrong choice.

My novel had a projected publish date of mid-October.  A month from now, a dream could have come true.  Maybe.

Their first round of novels were supposed to launch in July, but I am not sure if that happened.  I keep tabs on some other authors who have signed with this company because I'm anxious to see what happens.  For them, things seem to be moving forward and they are pleased with the process.

I still made the right decision, right?

Just kidding.  I know I did what I felt made the most sense at the time.  Still, I'm so ready for my novels to find an audience beyond my circle of family and friends.  That's something that requires patience, but, frankly, I skipped that line when virtues were being passed out.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

The Creek

I couldn't tell you what it is about the forest that calms me.  Maybe it isn't the forest, at all, but the murmur of the river against the time-worn pebbles.  Or maybe the melody of the birds flitting from branch to bank, the cicadas joining in with their staccato rhythm.  Perhaps, even, the aroma of pine sap, damp earth, and moss drew me here--especially on days like today.  Mostly, I liked the quiet.  No one offered me advice or asked for my help out here.  No one spoke at all unless you counted the babble of the water, and I didn't.

Tally snorted and took a tentative step from the shore and into the edge of the creek.  I patted her shoulder as she took another swishing step, thankful for the distraction. I'd fought so hard to keep him from leaving, but, in the end, none of it mattered.

The End of the Middle

7/31/13.  In the middle of the night, I typed the last sentence of my Young Adult novel "In the Middle".  I celebrated and felt free and easy for approximately half a day, then I flipped back open my laptop and fixed a section that didn't feel exactly right.  Because that's what writers do--they always feel like something could be fixed or rearranged for more impact.  It's a sickness.  A strange and wonderful sickness.

The beginning of August marks the end of July's Camp NaNoWriMo, 31 days of writers worldwide creating.  Campers are encouraged to pick their own word count goal (mine was 26,364 words, oddly specific because that magical number brought my novel to 50k words) and go for it.  I rounded out July with 38,406 words (62028 words in total), 12k above my goal.  I'll take it.

In March I began this journey with Lucy, an orphaned teenager burdened by the weight of her parents' deaths.  Lucy was angry and unpleasant, scarred and in pain.  She wasn't the only one in the little town of Mitte who struggled with loss and regret.  In the Middle forced me to look at death and remorse from a handful of angles, mourn with each person, and then offer a bit of hope.  Perhaps it will never be published, let alone read and understood by an audience, but recording their story took me on a journey I will always remember.

To Lucy, Oliver, Jasper, Perdita, Letty, Duke, Magnolia, Tessa, Johanna, Norman, Millie, Sadie, Angus, Sal, Bud, Vera--even Derek and Tanya...  Thank you for waking me up.

Full of Win

In the wee hours of the morning--3:14 a.m. if we're getting all technical and stuff--I finally brought my current manuscript to 50k words, the length of an average novel (or so the peeps at National Novel Writing Month tell me).  This story, best described as a young adult paranormal thriller, woke me up one chilly morning this past March.  I read a lot of paranormal fiction, but it's nothing I really had any desire to write until this story shook me by the shoulders and demanded I pay attention.

In April I tried to take this particular story (currently titled In the Middle) from about 13k to 50k by participating in Camp NaNoWriMo.  For those of you not familiar with the way NaNoWriMo works, allow me to explain.  The other NaNos want you to write a 50k-word novel in one month (typically November), with emphasis on daily word count goals. If you've got a a big enough stash of junk food and are good at disciplining yourself and/or know how to blacklist most of the Internet from your computer, you will sit down at a computer, write for a month and magically a book appears at the end of it.  You grin like a maniac and shake your aching fists in the air proclaiming your triumph over evil--I mean, words!  Words!  Then you quickly realize you haven't showered in a week (or three), clamp those armpits shut again, and wander off to tell your family they can call off the Search-and-Rescue mission.

If you're not so good at the whole NaNoWriMo thing, nothing happens.  You probably have a social life, a job, a family who still likes/recognizes you--all bonuses.  The most social we get during NaNoWriMo months is usually comparing word counts on our latest word battles.  On Twitter.  That's, like, not even a real website.  That's people simultaneously yelling their opinions into a crowded room.  #yesI'mtalkingtoyou.  Sometimes I write on my porch just to remember what the air feels like on my albino skin.

Why do I do this to myself, again?  Oh yeah, because I really, really love it.

All kidding aside, the lovely, caffeinated folks behind NaNoWriMo have inspired a staggering number of people to write books.  Most of the time, that's a good thing.  And, no, I'm not talking about you, E. L. James.  Stopit!

The beauty of Camp is the ability to pick a goal for your month of concentrated writing that fits in with your life instead of 50k, which used to be the only option (go big or go home!)  Optimistic, or possibly sadistic, I aimed high--That ended up too ambitious of a goal when it all boiled down to it.  I lost a horse to old age and arthritis and gained two more within the same month.  Historically, I'd say I'm pretty crappy with change, especially change involving the equine species.  Emotional upheaval doesn't usually lend itself to my creative process unless you consider my creative process eating a ton of chocolate and threatening to move away because, and I quote, "y'all are crazy!"

I managed six-thousand words that month.  That's, like, 1/8 of my goal.  Or something.  I'm bad at Math.  Numbers aside, it was no bueno.  My main character stuck in the middle of something big, something that changed the whole storyline... and I couldn't write myself out of it because I lost it all.  Poof!  The passion that woke me out of hibernation on a frigid Saturday morning fizzled away, even though I knew I had a story worthy of bleeding onto the page.  I began to feel anxiety that I would never rescue poor Lucy from her predicament.  I feared In the Middle would get buried in the old files on my laptop, never to see the light of day again.

A similar thing happened to me last July (and August.  And Septem--do you see where I'm going with this?) while working on the second draft of my first novel.  I'd lost my horse and best friend of 19 years to colic and the devastation wiped my mind completely clear of everything, including my creativity.  My main character, known for her sarcasm, couldn't think of anything funny to say.  For months, literally, I stared at my laptop screen all day, lucky to work out a couple sentences in all of that time.  The whole thing seemed pointless and discouraging.  I finished the redraft of that first novel only days before NaNoWriMo started up in November.  When NaNoWriMo began, I started the sequel to my first novel, which I eventually finished up on January 15th of this year.  Can't win 'em all, they say, but I won when I didn't give up.  The second book was just the icing on the cake.  (Did someone say cake?  It is NaNoWriMo again, which means JUNK FOOD!  It's for the books, I swear!)

Life, and death, runs in cycles--and I guess it is my Kryptonite, all this grief.  And I need to learn to deal with it like Superman does.  On second thought, no, probably not.  Kryptonite renders him a whiny cry-baby.  Dang it!  That's the only comic book analogy I have!

Thankfully Camp NaNoWriMo occurs each July, too, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me because it is the worst possible month for a mom of four to accomplish anything beyond brushing her teeth each morning (and often that is questionable).  But they didn't design their calendar around me, so I just have to deal.  Camp is the perfect excuse to push myself to get back into the habit of writing a lot, so I went for it.  This time, I set a goal of 26,394 words to bring "In the Middle" to 50k words.  At 3:14 this morning, and six days before my deadline, I hit my mark.  **

The novel's not completed, as much as I wish it was, but the finish line is so close I can almost taste it (have you ever noticed how much I talk about food?  I have.).  Now I'm pouring my focus into getting as close as possible to "The End" before July reaches its end.  This month's success is the total opposite of last year's July paralysis

Being trapped inside your own head trying to figure out how to heal is not pleasant.  Being able to look back and see how far you've come and realize you really CAN do anything is a feeling beyond words.  Three-fourteen this morning found me staring at a blinking cursor and the word count screen with my heart bursting full of allllllll the emotions.  No one can possibly know what it feels like unless it is your struggle and your triumph.  Today I feel very powerful, kinda like the opposite of Superman hugging a bar of Kryptonite.  I think the analogy worked that time!

Now back to the story...

~~~

**Special thanks goes out to my writing doula, Courtney, whose enthusiasm (or, at least facade of enthusiasm) keeps pushing me to press on even when my eyes are bursting into flames.  Thanks to the Camp NaNoWriMo crew, of course.  Also, a humungo shout out to the dude who wrote Write or Die!  I don't know what it is about that red computer screen that makes me want to type complete gibberish just to make it go away. And, as always, a big "whaddup!" to my muses, Ish and Moe.  Keep it up, boys.  Mama needs a new pair of riding boots!

Waiting

As I led the pony to the mounting block, ready for our ride, my mother yelled from the back porch.  Her voice didn't carry, only the sharp tone of urgency.  Mom-voice.

"Can't hear you!"  I replied as I settled in the saddle and moved my fingers to their mirrored positions on each side of the reins.

"LIGHTNING!"  She tried again, louder.  "Lightning from the clouds to the ground!  We're going inside!"

Were there other kinds of lightning?  I wasn't sure.  My parents, Floridians at heart, couldn't shake the habit of going into hiding whenever a storm hit.  "The lightning can strike a mile on all sides of the storm," I remember Mom telling me during one winter in the South.  This is Michigan, though, and I'm pretty sure our storms are underachievers, like just about everything else here.  Except for the storms that involved Mr. Ohboy's grandpa, who was struck by lightning on two separate occasions as he sat in the same chair in the same house.  That was clearly bad luck--it had nothing to do with the ferocity of the storm or taking proper cover.  Or the fact that he was wearing his tinfoil hat.  (Totally kidding about the tinfoil hat, but it sounded good).

But back to tonight...

Above me the sky reflected back a clear robin-egg blue.  To either side, grey clouds pushed forward with a rumble.  The pony didn't fret like an animal about to be deep-fried by a stray bolt of electricity, but something told me it might be part of her diabolical plan to be rid of me forever.  As the wisps of clouds advanced, I sighed and dismounted.  We waited out the blast of wind in the aisle of the pole barn, which struck me as probably more dangerous than being out in the open, but made me seem more responsible to anyone paying attention.  I'm not widely viewed as responsible.  I blame that on being the baby of the family.  And on being irresponsible, but whatever.

Eventually the sun broke through the clouds, and I led the pony back to the arena.  Our ride went well (in case you cared), though I cut it short because more thunder warned of another storm inching our way.  Before I could finish cleaning up and securing the barn for the evening, the canopy of sky overhead darkened.

Because I had walked down to the barn, I walked home.  The pasture stretched before me, the breeze tickling the tips of the grass, and all I could think of was my vulnerability.  The blackness feathering above me like the wings of a dark angel reminded me of my mortality.

If I died on that very spot, pierced through by pure energy, would my life have meant something?

Yes?  No?  I don't know.

My 35th birthday was a few days back, and I joked that I wanted warning if this was the year of the mid-life crisis.  To be honest, though, I felt like I've been in a mid-life crisis for twenty years.  Nothing is as I thought it would turn out, and that's not a bad thing, necessarily.  My younger self didn't dream, something I've grown to accept as the dreams have continued to elude me.  All I ever wanted was to be a horse trainer, rock star, and hopelessly in love.

My marriage does not resemble a chick flick, and I wish that was different, but we do the best we can clinging to each other as we roll with the punches.  Parents who have been dealt the challenging hand of children with special needs can probably understand.  To those who can't understand what that means to a family, to a couple, to a person--I pray you never have to understand, personally, but that you will understand anyway because others need your compassion instead of judgement.  Somehow, through it all, we're still here.  I don't know why we've been so lucky that way.  And I do know that we love each other, though it's not like 'The Notebook'.

Ryan Gosling.  Mmm.  Oh, sorry...  But, for real.  Ryan Gosling.

I'm not a horse trainer like I always wanted, though I train my horses every day.  In a way, I guess that one's true, too.  Sometimes it feels so pointless, especially when I try my hardest and there's still so much I don't know how to do.  Or when I spend my life building a relationship with a horse only to have to say good-bye, and usually on such tragic terms.  Every loss is a blow I can't quite put into words.

I'm only a rock star when I'm driving down the highway and belting out impossible notes along with Florence + the Machine.  Seriously, I am not sure what that sounds like to people who drive next to me with their windows down.  So, yeah.  NOT a rock star.

Writing was always a dream, but something that felt so utterly out of reach I never put much thought to it.  In this age of self-publishing and vanity houses, it's completely attainable now.  If I died tonight, I wouldn't be published.  For all I know, my manuscript is buried in an inbox somewhere important, awaiting a double-click that may never come.  If I died tonight, I'd spend the rest of eternity wondering if I'd ever have been worthy of an audience.  

In the end, I obviously made it to my home without being targeted by my very own lightning bolt, but the night is not over.  There are countless other things in my life that feel stagnant, blanketed in dust, ignored.  I've been quiet here because there hasn't been much to say, and that's how the inside of my head feels, too.  Still.  Holding.  Waiting.

But for what?

For dreams.  For direction.  For someone to tell me I'm better at this whole life thing than I think I am.  Is this what growing older is like?  Questioning and analyzing how differently it has all gone down?

Back to the Drawing Board

And, in case you were wondering, I decided to pass on the opportunity to publish with the company that I mentioned a couple blog posts back.  The individuals I spoke with at the company seemed nice enough, and I enjoyed our conversations, but the contract left a bad impression--like a crimson handprint radiating on my cheek.

Could it have worked?  Maybe.  I'd been speaking with another of their signed authors for a week or so prior to receiving the contract, and I guess he negotiated a lot of the things I took issue with to work in his favor.  Probably I could have, too, but I didn't even wait for them to reply with a counter before I bid them adieu.  In the end, I decided it was a divine hint that it was not the right timing or maybe not the right opportunity.  I haven't even really tried to land an agent yet, so, in a sense, everything is a possibility.  Well, except for that publishing company.

There'll be more doors to open and look inside, more lessons to be learned.  This I know for sure, though:  I will be published, one way or another.  Mark my words.

2 Legit, 2 Legit 2 Quit.

I need help.  I need your help.

I need you to throw anything you have at me--prayers, good thoughts, jingles, spare coins, whatever.

It's an unholy time of the morning and I am up because my blistering shoulders told me to get up and rub the lotion into the skin (I really did NOT want the hose again).  Once the lotion soaked in, though, my mind couldn't turn back off.

This publishing thing has me all sorts of conflicted, y'all.  Reviewing the facts (or lack of facts) I have on my prospective publisher, I should continue on my merry little way.  But here I am, pausing.  It makes no sense.

A friend of a friend told me that if my goal was getting my book out there no matter what, even at the cost of my own legitimacy, to go ahead.

At the cost of my legitimacy?

Ouch.

My work--my status as a writer--could be construed as unworthy should I chose Publisher B over Publisher A?  Or, in another example, self-publishing vs. traditional publishing?  I presented this idea to my husband, who assured me that reasoning was flawed.  "If you're on the worst baseball team in the division, that makes you less of a baseball player?"  Some would say yes, but I understood what he was trying to get through my skull.

I get it.  I wouldn't have asked this friend of a friend to drop some knowledge (or, at the very least, scathing opinion) on me unless I didn't really want to hear it.  And I'm trying to be open to what is coming back to me--good and bad.  The problem with this particular company is that it sounds so promising, but it is so new that that's all there is right now--promises.  I'd sincerely hope that people would caution me about what I'm considering.  I'd likely do the same in their shoes.

The answer to all of this seems so clear sometimes, and, at others, I can appreciate the views on the other side.  Frustrating.  Where is my Magic 8-Ball when I need it?

I'm obviously still weighing the plusses and minuses of this particular company and publishing traditionally at all, and I'm still on the fence.  That being said, I'm supposed to talk with their contract guy later today to explain their process.  I'll update when I know more, if I even know how to decipher any of the legal mumbo-jumbo into words any of us can wrap our brains around.  In the meantime, I'd reallyreallyreally appreciate it if you could think of me and help me to receive clear direction as to whether I should proceed or not.

Thanks.  You're a peach, I don't care what the others say about you.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

I haven't blogged in weeks.  Maybe you noticed.  Maybe you didn't.  Maybe you never even knew I had a blog.  Maybe you never cared to know the random things that pass through my brain.  If you didn't care, then I guess you wouldn't be here reading this now, so nevermind that bit.

At any rate, I've not had a lot to say.  A lot happened in April, but the words kept to themselves, mostly.

I lost a sweet horse, Mariah, to a heart-breaking decision I didn't want to have to make.  Her weight was good through the winter, but her joints just seemed to give way.  We spent the afternoon before the vet's visit brushing her and stuffing her full of the treats she loved so much...  After I had to chase her back to my property when she turned tail and ran through the neighbor's hay field.  That burst of spunk caused me to second-guess myself up until the moment she walked away from the barn for good.  Really, there wasn't anything to second-guess.  Even with her halting gait, she nearly bowled me over to go through the gate for the last time, never to return.  My step-dad says I'm reading too much into it--she was just a horse, after all--but I think she knew her time had come.  She was ready to be whole again in some other place.

Two days after we said good-bye to Mariah I began what I assumed would be the long process of horse-hunting and test-rides.  That day we looked at two ponies and bought the second one, a grey draft pony named Ellie.  She reminds me a lot of the pony I had when I was a kid, another horse I loved and lost.  Thank goodness I can think of that pony and smile.  The wounds are still a bit too fresh from losing my Moe and Mariah nine months from each other.  Back to Ellie, though--she is talented and quick, so I've been working at slowing her down and getting her back in shape for the kids to ride.  I've been riding a lot, for me, at over two hours a day in the saddle.  I'm one tired muchacha, most days.

My step-dad decided the tack room in our barn was in need of a major overhaul, so they began that project around the time they purchased the grey pony.  Now instead of dust, cobwebs, and mouse droppings, we have wood paneling, fluorescent lighting, and linoleum.  There are cross-ties for three horses instead of only one.  It's super-fancy.  You know, I've been riding for the past 30+ years in squalor so I don't know how to behave in nice places.  I might have to let the mice and birds into the tack room to relieve themselves, for old time's sake.

Yesterday my sister also bought a horse, a bay Tennessee Walker gelding.  His name WAS Henry, but he has been renamed "Romeo".  Despite my mare's (Trinity) best attempts to scare the bejeebies out of him with her crazy front legs and ear-splitting squeal, he is not very concerned with the goings-on of our barn.

The reintroduction of my family to the barn has been difficult.  For decades it has been my safe haven, the place I go to escape everything.  One by one, the horses are being replaced.  Board by board, [beautiful] improvements erase the little bits that remain of my memories of horses past.  The air is laced with the conversations of others instead of the whisper of the breeze.  It is all changing.  The changes are not all unpleasant, but, to me, they are all related--directly or indirectly--to losing a loved one.  I'm still grieving.  Not with the intensity I did when I lost Moe, but it's still there.  I'm crying for all of them.  There's little emotional leeway for much else.

Things have been happening in my non-horsey life, too.  A while ago I entered a contest attempting to attract the interest of a literary agent.  My submission didn't make it past the slushpile readers whose job it was to wade through all of the entries for the agents.  At the conclusion of the contest we were given a second chance to submit a Twitter pitch so the agents could see what they'd missed.  My Twitter pitch received requests from one agent and a brand new publishing company.  The agent ended up passing once she read my query and first several pages, but the publishing company requested my full manuscript two weeks ago.  Last night as Mr. Ohboy and I walked back from feeding the horses, I checked my e-mail and found a message from the publisher saying they were interested in signing me.

This afternoon I talked with the woman who runs the company, firing off questions and concerns and sharing our mutual disdain for "50 Shades of Grey" for over an hour.  The premise of the company is promising:  Treating writers with respect, fostering community amongst the authors in this house, allowing authors as much control as possible, and a lot of other things that made me feel comfortable about possibly letting this company help me bring my stories to the world.  The biggest problem?  They are so new their first round of acquisitions isn't set to publish for another month or so.  They are a total unknown.  On one hand, it's flattering to be considered for this fledgling company, getting in on the ground floor, so to speak.  On the other hand, I worry that once things get moving they will discover that their nice ideals and flexibility aren't making them money and all of those "pros" will disappear.  What if they don't survive?  What if they take my reputation with them?  I'm not sure if any of that makes any sense, but I've been processing it all day long.

The next step is to lay my eyeballs on their contract and figure out if it makes any sense to me.  It won't.  It's completely written in legal-ese.  I barely speak redneck-tinged English.

And then I think of this publisher, someone who doesn't know me from anyone, who personally read my manuscript and saw something of value in it, and in me.  Enough that she'd be willing to take a chance by bringing me in to be part of the building effort for her company.  It's scary and humbling, all at the same time.

I've not signed anything or given a commitment of any kind because all I've had is a nice phone conversation with a stranger.  Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and this will all be a weird dream, but tonight I will smile remembering her compliments.  I don't get enough of those, do you?

Also on the writing front--In April, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo.  My hopes had been to add 30k words to a project I've been working on, a Young Adult thriller tentatively named "In the Middle".  With everything else going on, I managed about 10k.  This big "miss" did give me time to think about the plot a little, so look for more happening with that story in the near future.

What else?  Oh, I have a new nephew!  He's adorable and I need to visit him.  Other than that, I haven't had time for much else.  What about you?  Anything big happening where you are?

Meh.

I decided to edit today, with three kids in the house, one of whom I was attempting to potty-train.  Mr. Ohboy spent most of the day working.  In other words, I was torturing myself.  

My goal was to finish the opening scene of book 1, which I did.  I felt good about the changes I made, but when I re-read it just now.  Meh.  

Maybe it will feel better tomorrow.  

It's a Virtue, and I'm Not Particularly Virtuous

Nothing I've written is remotely near being ready to publish.  There are sentences to weed and phrases to prune.  Characters to cultivate or burn away, the choice is up to me.  Plots need water or redirection like vines on a trellis.  In other words, a ton of gardening.

Have I mentioned I'm not particularly great at keeping green things green?  Gardening is a bad metaphor.

This week I gave myself the option of writing or not writing, editing or not editing.  Laying in bed catching up on bad t.v. and afternoon naps instead of deadlines and writer's block.  Staying up late watching Conan because I can or going to bed obscenely early because there's no word count left.  My break should be refreshing.  My synapses should be snoozing so they can return ready to fire more quickly and easily.  But no....  That's not what's happening.

Instead, my stomach is churning with each day that passes in which no forward progress has been made on my dream.  I don't like being in limbo.  I don't want to rush this thing, but I hate being suspended in this void.

I'm reading to distract myself, to refuel my creativity and see how others more successful than myself spin a tale.  Apparently it's not working, because instead of losing myself in these books, I push my way through each one.  My brain is persistant, nudging me every few pages.  "Pssst!  Hey!  If she can do this, so can you!"

My husband is not helping.  "Finish that book yet?"  Every. Single. Time. He. Walks. In. The. Door.  I love him, I do.  But sometimes, I loathe him.

Mommy Dearest isn't helping, either.  When I described to her why I was overwhelmed about editing my first book (a.k.a. "The Book Written Entirely In Passive Voice"), she shocked me by telling me I was probably over-analyzing my book.  A few minor changes, she said, and I would think it's ready to go!  She's my mama.  It's written into her job description to believe I can do no wrong--except for that typo on page 35 and the other one on page 110--but it's still strange to have her on more of an accelerated timeframe than myself.  I probably owe her money.

It's all about patience.  When God handed out patience, I think I was in the back of the line, and by the time I reached the front, there were only crumbs left in the bag.  "Here."  I imagine God said as he dropped the specks of patience in my palm.  "Good luck with that.  And, remember, 'thou shalt not kill'."  Then He walked away bent over in hysterical laughter.  To make it even more hilarious, He pumped my veins full of the blood of Irish, Scottish, and German ancestors.  Well-played, God.  Welllllll-played.

On top of it all, the crazy (and not-so-crazy) thought occurred to me to write the third installment first just to see if I could and the stars aligned.  And by "stars aligned", I mean "does any of this make a lick of sense?"  If I chose to write more now, I would need to find another place to live because I am pretty sure that would be the end of my marriage, right there.  My husband's already convinced these books will never see the light of day past my computer screen and I'm just pretending to write.

So, yeah.  There's a lot of pressure.  From books that aren't but very well could be my own...  From my well-meaning (but adolescent) husband...  From my usually well-planned but impetuous mother.  But mostly, and most deeply, from my own self.

I'm not letting anyone talk me into putting anything out there before it's really and truly time, but I sure hope this feeling of suffocation decides to leave me soon.