Considering my last post was entitled “Dig Deep”, and I haven’t updated in over a week, you must have assumed I was on quite the excavation into my soul. I was, for part of the week, writing the first twelve pages of my memoir as an assignment for my new writing class, which I love by the way. The assignment proved to be much harder than I thought it would be. Stupidly, I assumed that because I have been living this project so vividly for the last year, that it would be easy to just jump in and start writing a book. Aren’t I fancy? But instead, I found myself staring at a blank computer screen and sending Brian texts like…“this writing a book thing is no joke”.
When the judgmental blank computer screen would become too much for me, I would retreat to the couch to read “Tiny Beautiful Things” and escape from the question looming over my head…how do I want to start my book to? It’s a BIG question that I didn’t have an answer for. As my writing teacher, Richard, put it so eloquently- “If the first fifteen pages don’t grab the reader, they aren’t going to read to twenty.” No pressure, Richard. No pressure.
You will be happy to know that I soldiered through it and finally put words on a page. I’ve started my book! So what that I am only ten rough pages in- IM IN! This first assignment made me realize that this is going to be a very long and laborious process of love. Like birthing a baby! That’s probably unfair of me to say since I have never birthed a baby but I’m going with it. It has definitely awakened something in me. I’m finding it hard to go to bed at night because I have so many ideas racing through my head. I’m feeling very alive by the process.
You know what didn’t prove to be a hard but fun process last week?? The stomach flu. It proved to be an awful, awful, awful experience. It knocked me on my ass for three days. It was hard for me to even move from the bed to the couch. At one point I was so exhausted by it all that I just crumpled on the bedroom floor in my ratty t-shirt, sweat pants, disheveled hair and started sobbing to Brian, “pleeeeease make it stop”. It was quite a display. Have you ever been so sick that even blinking hurts? That was my reality for the latter part of the week.
On another note, we are off to Asheville, North Carolina tomorrow. I am a fan of getting out-of-town and I hear Asheville is gorgeous, so I am excited. I can’t wait to tell you all about it!
