i went to bed pretty early last night, an optimistic thing to do after a four day weekend of staying up late and sleeping in even later (thank you jeebus for this most precious holiday). contrary to my usual pattern, i was on the verge of sweet dreams (well, probably not sweet dreams, probably more like weird dreams, under which heading most of my dreams can be categorized. not scary weird. scratch-your-chin-and-wonder-what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-my-deranged-brain weird.) at about nine p.m. when days (truthfully weeks and if i really want to admit the reality, almost months) of tossing around ideas for a book in my head, of tracing out possible plot lines and character traits, of setting down a setting of time and place, culminated in the formation of an idea. an idea for my book. not just an idea for my book, but a good, workable, and i believe, entertaining idea. i kept my head on my pillow and told myself to remember all the things that were popping up in my head, one after another, going off like an automatic weapon. i told myself that if i kept repeating these ideas as they were coming to me that i would be able to remember them in the morning. i didn't want to get up because being near sleep at nine (well, it would be about nine thirty at this point) wasn't worth hopping out of bed to grab a pen and paper. my brain continued to spin off the central idea and my body continued to flip and flop in bed. chris, who was dealing with his own bout of the sunday evening back to work blues, finally asked me why i couldn't sleep. so i told him "i've got it. i've got the idea for my book." at which point he asked simply, "why don't you go write it down?" count on chris to be logical on a sunday night when our room is too hot and the covers are all messed up and i can't sleep because i have finally found the pooper scooper and baggie to pile all this shit into that has been buzzing around my head without a place to land for the last two months or so (i think i mixed metaphors there, and my fly got stuck in my shit or something, but oh well). anyway, i got up and grabbed my notebook and jotted down all the floaties that were floating through my head and in about fifteen minutes i had about three pages, all of it the musculo-skeletal structure of what could end up being a long, long story. book length, in other words. i am very very excited about this, hence my title: oh boy.
however, i am also very scared about this. i am scared because i don't have any more excuses to start -- or to not start. i am scared to tell people about my idea -- what if they think its stupid and my balloon gets burst? i am scared because of the committment actually sitting down and writing my thoughts represents. i am scared that i suck too much, or am too lazy, or whatever, to get this done. oh boy.
so i guess now the responsible, smart thing to do would be schedule some time every day to write. right now with a full time job, it's a little hard to imagine getting more than a couple of pages per week finished. however, i at least have my beginning, and my character, and my setting, and my plot, and my structure. i hope that i don't do with this one what i've done in the past -- disregard it as already been done, or dumb, or poorly written. i need this to work. i need to work at this. i need to prove to myself that i am good enough, smart enough, and that gosh darm it, people like me. no pressure. oh boy.
