@MichBek

I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. At times, my timeline is a dream, all the people I follow geniuses, and being a part of it is a genuine pleasure. Other times, I wish I could punch every single one of said geniuses in their virtual naughty bits and delete them from my memory forever. I’ve threatened to cancel my Twitter account I-don’t-know-how-many times (in my head, and occasionally even out loud, causing the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru attendant to ask if I could please repeat my order), set my account to private and even gone on month-long hiatuses (well…hiatus, singular, and I didn’t last the entire month, but I digress).

Why am I telling you this?

Because to go all George Costanza on your asses, I realized something:  it’s not you, it’s me.

Over the past six months, I’ve learned a bit about myself; something beyond the fact that I am slowly turning into one of those grouchy old women who yells at kids, considers anyone younger than 30 to be an idiot and breaks wind in the supermarket.

After my dad died, I felt like I would never write again. And then, one day, I felt like I would never stop writing. Not in an I’m so clever I have a zillion stories to tell kind of way, but in a whiny, everything I write turns to shit way. It wasn’t writer’s block; it was writer’s manure and I hadn’t just stepped in it, I’d created it.

Bear with me here…

As most of you know, I’ve been working on my third novel. And when I say working, I mean moaning and groaning about it until my brain is so full of bitching, even the characters don’t want anything to do with me. I don’t blame them. If you’ve read my books, then you’ve met the main character of Novel 3.0. He isn’t the sort to tolerate self-centered whining. And he certainly isn’t the sort  to offer himself up (naked, or otherwise) on a silver platter just to appease my creative crisis.

And so, I’ve spent the last six months relearning how to write. And it’s been HORRIBLE.

Okay, that’s not entirely true…in fact, it’s total rubbish. Somewhere, deep inside me, this story exists. It’s taken longer than usual to pull it to the forefront, partly because life keeps getting in the way, partly because I expend a great deal of time and energy convincing myself I’m not dying (well, I am, but only bit by bit, as we humans are wont to do) and partly because I have convinced myself that this is The Book. If you’re asking yourself, what the bloody hell does she mean by that? then a) thank you for sticking with me thus far and b) The Book is the one I, as a writer, hope will take me to the next level in my writing.

And yes, as writers I believe we want that with every book. We want to grow with every word, sprout leaves with every story and in general, turn into the Giving Tree by the time we’ve died and someone has (finally!) decided our work would make a great movie. And therein lay the rub. My first novel was exactly that, a first novel. I love it for what it is, for its simplistic story line and for the characters who not only came alive on the page, but in my heart. I love it for the same reason I love the first poem I ever wrote–because I proved to myself that I could.

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Forgive me, lovelies, for I have sinned. Wait…that’s nothing new, is it?

But it has been months since my last post. Why? I could fill a book with reasons (there’s a writer joke in there somewhere).

A few months ago, I was looking through old pictures trying to find a particular one of my dad and me. For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter (for shame!), my Dad was diagnosed with cancer a few days after my last post. He died a little over a week later. And before you cry for me, Argentina, know that I am coping with the loss the best way I know how, by surrounding myself with the people and things that I love. Losing Dad was the first time I’d lost a really close relative (my great-grandmother only died about five years ago). Yes, I am one of those fortunate people who haven’t had to say goodbye to too many of their loved ones. I don’t think I ever realized how lucky I was. No…that’s not true. I know I never realized. But I do now. I miss my Dad very much. And there are times when I swear I can still hear him say “It’s going to be okay, babe,” in his thick New Jersey accent. He was an amazing man; still is, if you ask me. He will always be the man I measure every other against. For that, I am eternally grateful.

Anyway…back to me sorting through pictures. I never did find the one I was looking for. I did, however, find a few poems, including the first one I ever wrote. It was written for my Mom on Valentine’s Day and goes a little something like this:

I love you
I love you
I love you, I do.
If I were a shoelace, I’d give you a shoe.

It’s okay. You can laugh. I did, both out loud and quite heartily. I’m happy to say I’ve outgrown my proclivity for rhyming. And for comparing the people I adore to something that invariably ends up harboring the bacteria of muddy streets and disgusting bathroom stalls. I’m also happy to say that the purple and pink scented markers I used to draw the hearts on the paper have lost their scent. I can only imagine how awful those hearts would have smelled nearly thirty years later. I am, however, going to send that card to my Mom next Valentine’s Day. Not just because I think she’ll laugh as loud as I did, but because my feelings towards her haven’t changed since then. I would still give her a shoe. I know she would do the same for me. Which brings me to my next topic: Inlaws.

In three days’ time…three sleeps, as my husband describes it…I will be meeting my new inlaws for the first time. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m incredibly nervous. Excited and thrilled and ecstatic, but still nervous. Apparently, you don’t outgrow stuff like that with age.

And now you’re wondering, as is a certain Cornishman (mostly because he’s looking over my shoulder), what is up with the title of this post? I have no idea. It sounded good at the time and quite frankly, I’m too tired to think of anything cleverer. Well, perhaps that’s not entirely true. The time warp came to mind because that’s how I’ve felt about my writing for the last few months. I’m going to write this. No, I’m going to write that. Maybe I won’t write anything. Oh, stop being a whiny bitch and just WRITE. These thoughts are like shiny red apples. They pop into my head and I decide I need to bite into them. And I do. But then time passes and the air turns my beautifully bitten ideas that awful brown color and I look at that great apple of thought and wonder why I ever considered it a great idea. That’s what happened with The Earl’s Solstice. So, after forty plus thousand words…I decided not to write it.

That’s right, I said it. I’m not writing The Earl’s Solstice. Not right now, at any rate. In my months of soul-searching (translated as somewhere between burying my dad and playing Minecraft until my eyes bleed), I reached one of those conclusions most writers seem to reach at one point or another during their careers: Now is not the time. It’s not the time to write Simon and Olivia’s story.

[This is the point in my internal monologue when my muse turns into a female Godzilla, curses me for wasting her time and then storms out of the room with all the drama of a thirteen year old girl who just found out the boy of her dreams wouldn't be caught dead with a geek girl.]

My muse is a temperamental thing. Can’t imagine where that comes from. But I digress…

I am not writing The Earl’s Solstice because I’m writing Dancing with Darkness. It’s Gabriel’s story. Well, Gabriel AND Penelope’s story. And writing it seemed the next logical step in the series. So far, I’m only about 10K words in, but it’s coming along nicely. In some ways, it’s been easier to write than TES was. If you want my opinion, it’s because it’s fresh. It’s a good thing, too, because the research required to tell Gabe’s story is no picnic. It’s tedious. And distracting. And on more than one occasion, I have sat down to write armed with great ideas and a clear game plan, only to find myself zero words later having a discussion with my husband over the logistics of weapons. Or researching politics. Or staring at topographical maps of towns I never thought I’d be able to pronounce properly, much less write about. Research, my darlings, is the best reminder that you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do. I love it, almost as much as I love writing. Almost.

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