First sentence: It doesn’t take long for stories to turn into legends in the restaurant world, where before you know it the prep guy missed a day because he left in the middle of the night back to Mexico or else ended up in jail, nobody can track him down, and there he goes right into legend.
Memories of Halloween's past. The changed weather. There was the Greenwich Village Halloween party the year I lived in New York. When I waited patiently for midnight to pass so I could start Nanowrimo. When I wrote a fifty thousand word Nano novel because I had a soulless office job with virtually no job duties.
That was another life, so long ago.
If novels are mostly what I read why do I balk at writing them? Why not go boldly forth and be what I've always wanted to become?
I have crazy and silly ideas. I hear my characters in my head and they're tired of waiting around for me and i'm tired of getting home and saying food or writing? shower or writing? de-stress from working upwards of sixty hours a week or writing? What must it be like to be a non-creatively driven person who can go to work and come home, be fulfilled, not need to spend all their free time in pursuit of other vocations? What is it like to be able to relax every night? I don't know that feeling. I have these ideas to get impossible things done and it's like...do I just think about the things I want, or do I do them? How do I create the space to get them done? Especially when both my jobs are asking for more of my time, for this month or from now on? I'm in a field where you don't say no to more work, you just...work...
A novel is not an idea I had in college. Or graduate school. A novel is not a vague goal. It need not be stuffy or sanctimonious. But is it the right goal? Is it where marketable, funny, informed and prescient writing most belongs? Is it vain to think (no, to know) I'm good?
I am good...but what do with it and when and how. New story ready to send out...but sometimes it feels like more of the same. Lateral. No larger end in sight, no book contracts awaiting me. I'm not in this business for the money or the fame but because it's what I need to do with my life. And now I just need to find time to do it. No more excuses.
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1 comment:
Write because you love it, Lindsey. Write because it makes you happy. Write because it fulfils your soul. Don't write for money, fame, noteriety or to impress your acquaintences. Write because you need, must, are driven to. Live another job. Love writing and if the writing muse loves you back then you can think about a life change. But be advised, writing is one vile bastard when it chooses to leave you to your own feeble words.
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