Writing

I love to write, I always have.  I learned to read at a very young age and my passion for books quickly followed.  My mother could hardly keep me supplied with books fast enough.

When I was a kid, when we went on vacation, this meant piling into a car for a long time.  Before the modern, soccer-mom minivans existed, my father crafted us one.  We had a VW bus (think late 70’s/early 80’s) which he, with his engineering skills and ingenuity, removed all the bench seats from their prefabricated locations.  He then rebolted these benches along the side of the bus, so all occupants in the back seat were facing one another.  Kids were told to pile in first and then my parents would fill up the middle with our plethora of suitcases, boogie boards and sand shovels.

Eventually my mother graduated from the VW bus to the first Toyota minivan sold, think big square box with wheels.  And we traveled in this thing a lot.  Key West from Virginia?  Not a problem!  In one day?  Even better idea!  Only pre-selected bathroom breaks were allowed.  Being part of a family with six children means that unless someone hits the lottery, no matter how much your father makes, you probably aren’t going to be able to afford to fly everyone to a vacation location.  Six kids crammed into one vehicle for 10+ hour stretches can get unnerving for the most sane person.  And I was the baby.  The one who always had to go to the bathroom.  In an attempt to distract me from my bladder and from annoying my brothers, my mother brought along large quantities of new books just for me.  I remember one time my brother, Douglas, simply did not believe I could have read an entire book in a certain amount of time so he quizzed me in detail about the book.  To his chagrin, I passed this quiz with flying colors.

So books were my passion and writing is directly linked, at least for me.  I have often dreamed of writing the next American novel…okay, lets be serious.  I would be happy with a mediocre attempt at chick lit.  I have always kept a journal, which used to consist of stories and poetry.  I used to have an imagination and was able to craft stories and characters and events.  And now there seems to be nothing. I can write, yes, but I can’t create.

I personally blame my 7th grade English teacher for this (or maybe it was Eight, but I digress). If I can remember the plot line correctly, the assignment was to write a creative writing story.  I wrote a short story that consisted of three friends.  I remember there was at least one boy and one girl…and maybe another girl.  Anyway it ended up turning into a murder story with one of the characters being killed.

And the school called in my parents for a parent teacher conference because of my violent writing.

Luckily my parents were smart enough to not reprimand me.  I was 13 years old–girls were already having sex in my grade and the year before I had watched a kid get cuffed for murder in the middle of the cafeteria.  And they were worried about my creative writing story?!  I still probably wore my hair in two braids and let my mother pick out my clothes. I definitely wasn’t your closet murderer.

After that, I felt uncomfortable to let my mind and imagination take over in my writing.  I played it safe.  Actually, I think this whole situation just hit at a very inopportune time of my teenage years. I was entering the stage where I wanted to care about nothing, try to live up to only about 50% of my potential and really not push myself at all.  I think every teenager goes through this phase of being apathetic.  And I hit that stage around the time my writing took a big beating and so I just tucked it away and said I didn’t care.

It never really popped back up in high school. I remember having difficulties with creative writing because I just could not produce anything of merit.  But I have always dreamed. I always think about writing a book or a story.  Problem is, I don’t know what my story would be about.

So what should I do to change this and to challenge myself?

Enter National Novel Writing Month

The challenge–write a 50,000 word story due November 30th at midnight.

I just went and checked.  My thesis was 53,078 words (the fact it took me 4 years to finish writing is completely besides the point!), I can totally do this!  And there is no editing, the aim is simply (I use that word very lightly in this context) to get 50,000 words down with some cohesive plot line.

I may as well try.  It can’t hurt and it would definitely challenge me. I may bail two weeks in. Who knows, maybe I do have that next great American novel hidden in my head.

To Smile.