Falling in Love Again

I have left you behind, traded up for my new obsession, something bigger and better than a silly old blog. Isn’t that just like me? I have forgotten about putting my guts out into the Universe to let you know what is happening with me and this process.

And the reason is, I’ve fallen in love again.

And it’s EXACTLY the same as it was the first time.

***sigh***

I started talking myself into it right here on this very blog, but I have to be honest, I didn’t even believe my own self. (I’ve already told you, very sincerely, how prone I am to lying.) I tell you I heard a song. (Which I did, but I didn’t REALLY think it would work) And I tell you about how inspiration has nothing to do with anything really, how you just have to do the work. And I travel down this bloggy blog, staying on this bridge for long enough to get comfortable again with the weird transitiony place I’ve been in. All the while, not believing, even a little bit, that anything was going to come of any of it.

Then suddenly, it became clear it was time to move.

One day I asked myself, What are you waiting for? I’ve had, I don’t know, maybe 40 pages of this new book, just waiting there, taunting me in its little Word folder titled SURE OF YOU, for months. But I haven’t been able to commit to it. I’ve told you that I felt like I was cheating, but I can’t transmit effectively just how that feeling pervaded my work. Anytime I sat down to try and grab onto these new characters, this new and very compelling story, my mind would just say, “Nah, you don’t want to dive in there. It’ll probably be boring. It won’t be the same. Don’t even bother.”

And I suspect I’m not the only one who felt that way. I’m fairly certain all three besties felt some version of the same. They haven’t been fully onboard, I’ll tell you that much. It was like pulling teeth to get feedback or to get them to read or to get them excited. Until recently.

Here’s how my cheating surrender went:

One day I answered the question: What has to happen in order for me to commit to another project? How many times might this scenario play itself out in my life? Will I only write one book every hundred years? So I get an agent, so what! Then I’m waiting for a publishing company to buy it, then I’m waiting for a publishing date, then I’m waiting for reviews, then I’m waiting for release and on and on and on. At that rate, I’d never get another book written, because there’d always be something going on with the first book.

(Actually, the process was a lot more tedious and painful than that. It involved several days of phone therapy with Bestie A, a lot of praying and unnecessary thinking, but I thought Cliff’s notes were more blog-friendly.)

I started telling you about how things were rolling, even though I didn’t quite believe it myself, and suddenly they were. Isn’t that just the way?

So I sent what I had to the besties, a refresher of sorts. And they all jumped in with both feet. I don’t know, something about right place/right time. We are all groovin’ on this same-but-not-same thang. When we started talking about it a week or so ago, every ounce of excitement we had about the new book was prefaced with, “Now, I’m not saying that the new book is any better than the first book, I’m just saying . . .” or “This doesn’t take anything away from Iso and Jack, it’s just that . . .,” and I guess that’s just what we needed to do to move over to something new. I’m eternally grateful that we all continue to move together.

My 40 pages has doubled in the past week, and I’m excited and anticipatory about what is to come. I’m finding myself experiencing the same process, just in brief. Already, Bestie A has told me I’m writing with Oprah on my shoulder and I need to quit thinking about what everyone else is going to think. What I’m finding is that the duration of time spent in discomfort has been lessened greatly.

For instance, I can already tell I’m writing AROUND several things. It’s too uncomfortable to let myself really GO THERE just yet. I’m getting a preview on the page, an elaborate sort of outline, if you will. I’m warming up to it, the down and dirty, but not quite willing to jump on into the muck just yet. There’s sickness involved in this story. And I’m fairly certain death will make an appearance. It’s going to get ugly. A different kind of ugly than I’ve ever written before.

So, I recognize I’m doing a little avoiding. Only this time, I don’t feel like it’s the end of the world and I’m not telling myself that I should just give up and none of the besties have had to talk me down from any ledges so far.

I can see that I’m just preparing to put on my big girl pants and get brave. I can read back over something I’ve written and see what’s shallow. I’m even looking forward to finding out what’s really in there.

So that’s the scoop. Fully committed to #2. And feeling like #1 is going to be okay out there. I'm fairly confident I’ve brought it to a place where it can stand on its own. In fact, it may be better off without me hovering over it, checking its pulse every three minutes.

And who knows, maybe I’ll have two novels under my belt before I’m 35. Tenacious little shit, aren’t I?