On Sunday nights, I have dinner with friends, and we often have the most interesting and stimulating conversations. Something someone says gets inside my mind, and I can’t stop thinking about it for days. This Sunday’s discussion has me thinking about my book, and about why I’ve gotten myself stuck in a corner, trying to write but not really getting anything down on paper except the scribblings of a woman who keeps staying up way too late for her own good.I realize, after talking about my idea after dinner, that I need to write about the journey, and that’s exactly the part that is giving me the most trouble. I need to figure out exactly what the journey is, in the part of the book where there is the least action. I need to write about someone who is waiting for something, waiting for something and yet they don’t know what it is they’re waiting for. And somehow, even though this directly aligns with my life in such an intriguing way, and probably most anyone’s life really, I come up against a wall. I’m not sure why. I think I’m afraid of what I will write, which is odd for me, cause I’m not one to censor my writing at all. I know exactly what it’s like to wait for things. I’ve been waiting for lots of things my whole life. I also know what it’s like to not wait for things, and what it’s like when the things you’ve waited for actually happen.

It should be a piece of cake for me to write about waiting. But is it? Is it really that easy? I first have to figure out what the character is waiting for, what she’s doing while she’s waiting, whether she knows what lies ahead, and what could happen, or if I should just leave her in the dark about everything, so as to make it more “realistic.” I am writing a fantasy, so that last bit doesn’t even really matter.

I know I’m overthinking things…I need to just sit down and write stuff. Lots of stuff. And it doesn’t matter as long as I have words on paper, and they somewhat flow together into a comprehensible story. I’d even settle for a semisweet little paragraph or two, or a bit of dialogue. I’m always making excuses for not writing, not creating, and I have to stop doing this. I’m turning 33 soon, and this is my year to get this book written, and published, so that the whole world can read it.

I’m giving myself a deadline. If I haven’t written my book by the time I’m 34, in 2011, I have a lot of explaining to do. I do my best work when I have a deadline. I just need to not procrastinate till the last minute on this one, like I used to do for every other writing assignment (or strange thoughts article in high school). I have such inspiration all around me, in the people I know, the music I listen to, the books I read. The air I breathe even. Nothing goes unnoticed by my observing eye, or ear. Sometimes, there is too much inspiration, and not enough time to get it all into a notebook (there I go…more excuses…though this one is sort of true…but then I don’t have to play bejewelled as much as I do…).

I’ve written such beautiful things, but my story is still not refined, polished, ready for public consumption. So I will go now to do some writing, so that one day my story can be read, and maybe one day my words or thoughts can inspire others to create their own stories, or songs, or poems. I seek to inspire, to bring out the story in each of us. Because we do each have our own story. The story of lives that may not make sense, maybe not now, maybe not ever, but they’re still lives that have meaning, and purpose, and need to be shared.