Freaking out!

Well, not really, but still.

I started this book some time ago -- actually I have no idea. Months?  I don't think it has been a year, but I don't know.  Anyway, when I was writing it it was very intense, and I would often find myself bawling as I typed away.  The whole experience was maybe too much, because I eventually pulled back and focused on something else, and interestingly enough, if asked I wouldn't even say this is the book I am working on.

So, I am making sure that I am taking all the things I want to work on on my trip, and I saw this book and thought, Wow.  I'd forgotten about that.  How does one FORGET about a book they are writing?  I don't know.  I know that I found this one challenging -- and that I'd reached a point where I just didn't know where to take it.  But when I have a book in my head, it is all-consuming, and pretty much every moment of my day I am thinking about it, trying to move the plot along, going through 100 different scenarios until I reach one that feels right.  Then I sit down and write (and sometimes that begins at dawn and ends at midnight.)

Now obviously that is a ridiculous way to live a life that contains other things -- like a husband, children, friends, other interests.  But I am an all-or-nothing gal, plain and simple, and if I can't sit down and write until the cows come home, I will opt out, until eventually the book sort of ebbs out of my consciousness.

So I opened up Chapter 1 one of this book in progress and within several paragraphs I was completely spellbound.  OH YEAH!  I'd forgotten this book.  I'd forgotten how compelling the characters are and how they had all but sucked me dry!  And as I found myself sobbing, it all came back to me, how I had written these very words crying as well!  I devoured each chapter, not wanting to change a thing (this in itself is amazing) and was beside myself when I read the last of the last.  All she wrote.

And now, with only a few days to wrap up things, pack and be on my merry way, I am ...

O B S E S S E D.    

I have the pictures of the two main characters taped on the wall in my office.  I have stared at these faces for months, not really seeing them.  Now, they are speaking to me.  (I get a mental picture of a character in my head and then when I see them in a magazine, I tear them out and hang them up.)  I can hear their dialog in my head, and the story, which had somehow hit a roadblock, is now as clear to me as though I've always known it.  In fact, I am not sure where I was blocked!  For I know where it's all supposed to go.  But why?  I don't have those kinds of hours to put in right now.  Is this just to get me excited?  Am I supposed to finish this book in Sedona?  It's SHEEER torture is what it is.

But if I start ... I won't stop.  So I can't even take that cork out!  So I am blogging instead!  You know, I remembered blogging about this and so I looked it up, and sure enough, it was a YEAR ago that this book attacked me.  How odd that it's been a whole year.  The following was blogged on February 5, 2008: 

Attacked by a bug. A bug bearing gifts

And how.  I woke up this morning to find out that Charlie had a two-hour delay, and so I stayed in bed, hoping to fall back asleep.  Instead I started to think of this book idea, and it became kind of strong, so I sat down at the computer, and here I am about 10 hours later, elated, full of energy and three chapters down!

Quite the bug!  I was feverish, writing like mad all day long.  It just poured out.  I have no idea where it came from or what it is about or where it is going -- but it seems to know.  I mean, I obviously have an idea, but each chapter fleshed itself out and I 

 thought at the end of Chapter 2 I didn't have anymore to say, but apparently I did!  I only stopped because people were bugging me.  (It's always a bug of one kind or another!)  I also of course did not deal with dinner, so we are going out to eat, though I'd rather just sit here.

I suspect it will be a late night.  But don't worry, I won't get "writed out" by the book itself.  I believe this blog "unblogged my clog" and there are many, many, many words ready to flow!!!

Yahoooooo.

So, how fun is it that this record of my life exists and I can go back and read that I felt exactly as I do now a year ago?  My journal entry:  Writing a new book.  Not the same as what I blog!

(Just so you know, I spent the last half hour reading through February 2008 blogs.  Very fun.)

Blog out.