Evening after evening my mind wanders a little as I drive home from picking up the girls. For the record, I'm not a careless driver and have avoided a number of near misses with others more so over the years. But with those years comes some autopilot ability and hence I tend to do a lot of plot planning and character designing while driving. Because in the immortal words of the procrastinator; "One day when I have time I will write a novel."
I've mentioned before how if I could hook up to my brain with a word processor that this blog would be full of wonderment and insightful musings that would lead you all down such paths of self discovery it would be amazing.
Sadly (you in the back, I hear you laughing) that wondrous connection between consciousness and the written word is yet in our future. So you're stuck with what lingers after I get home, argue with the kids about whether or not it's the week they switch chores and how if they weren't done the week before it wouldn't really be fair to switch them, so quit trying to get out of it by not doingittillit'snotyourturn... ahem.
So this is what you're left with.
A blank screen, well, technically a blank composition area on blogger backend. Still and all, there's something compelling about a blank page, a canvas for one's words if you will. Shall I paint a picture of my day? How about one of a cherished memory? Oh, I know, I'll trace for you an emotion. Sketch the lines of it perfectly with words. Shade it with synonyms and just the right touch of hyperbole. Add in a touch of humor to lighten and a smidge of sarcasm for realism. Yes, that's it, that's perfect. I'll just dab this little bit of sadness in the corner and voila, a masterpiece for the ages.
So, okay, a master painter with words I am not. At least, not yet. Will I ever stir someone's heart to an emotion long forgotten? It's possible, it just might be. But I won't get there without practice and tossing aside my fears and getting around to that some day when.
'Cause honey? I got time. No time like the present. I got ideas, out the whaaazoo. That's part of the problem, how do I wed myself to one set of the characters in my head. Their stories are always evolving and sometimes when I set them aside for a time and then come back to them I find they kept on doing so and I no longer recognize them.
Is that the chance all writers take? That the story they set out to tell is not the one told at the end of it all? Is that okay? For me? For them? Does it matter? Isn't it just about getting the words down, the story out, finding out the ending, how the heroine (or hero for the sake of being totally PC) survived or didn't; what sacrifices (s)he might have had to make to get there...
Maybe I'd be better as an essayist, after all. The stories amuse me, but would they amuse others? The odd few I've let read my story words tell me they want more of them. I've been swatted with pages of my manuscript and admonished with remarks to the effect of get writing already and it gladdens my heart.
But what if, when all is said and done, no one wants to read my words after all? What then?
So much better to sit here with the lovely anticipation of a blank canvas and the imaginations of every wonderful story I know I could write if I'd just put pen to page, pencil to paper, cursor to screen.
And there you have it, the procrastination of a wanna be writer. Terror and anticipation, fear and ego, excitement and procrastination at its very finest.
