The first day of school for my Kindergartner (so really, the First first day of school) has come and gone. I spent a whole week cleaning my house because I could. Now it is time for the first day of work, because I keep promising myself that I will work because I mean this. I am over a quarter of the way through a book, and all I have to do is finish it. I realize that finishing does not guarantee a marketable, or even readable product, but it does show that I am at least dedicted to myself and this idea that I am a writer; that I want to write. I realize that it's not sexy or exciting to expose this level of insecurity this early in the process, but I am battling myself lately. I don't want to write because the whatifs in my brain are asking whether I actually can.
Something happens to a person when they endure years of compromise in order to make a buck. It was both the dream and the nightmare to find myself with pockets full of cash and no idea what the goal was anymore. Maybe it's a hyperbole to imply that I was living large, but I definitely had that salary that I once considered enough to finance my life and plenty to share with those less fortunate. Instead, I just kept buying nicer clothes, and better things, and more convenience. Life is hard when you can hardly stand to live it. Anyway, I am not getting into all of that. People do what they need to when they need it, and I am certainly not the first 30-year-old who proved to be a major letdown in the eyes of her 20-year-old self. The truth behind all of it is that I have to work so much harder now to find my way (back? onward? upward?) to wherever I can speak my voice without fear or filter. Yes, this first book is meant to be a simple one that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but I don't really believe that writing can exist without truth, and I need to be able to express that truth in order for the characters I write to be able to live it. Otherwise, what is the point? Without that, I would just be satisfying someone else's criteria in order to make a buck (which is definitely a desired endpoint, because hey 20-year-old self, mortgages are awful and no one wants to live in a rathole if they don't have to).
It is all just a balancing act. So, in the interest of getting somewhere while I try to ignore my own mental naysayers and actually produce something, I am revisiting the first chapter. I received notes from a friend who is a writing expert, and I am going to take those today and really give myself some time to work. So here goes my first day. I wish I had slept better and didn't have this terrible caffeine headache because I drank too much coffee over the weekend, but that's just how it goes sometimes.
Word count: 35,893
Goal: Rework chapter one in the interest of finding the main character and pulling the thread through the rest of the book.
