The reluctant

I've been meaning to come out of the closet about something for awhile, but I never seem to quite work up the nerve. Until tonight. For no other reason except that I very nearly lost my mind and ruined my entire life this evening and nobody would ever know why. That and the only reason really to resist confessing, and to not talk about it, stems from pure pride and chagrin on my part because well... I'm writing a book.

Best case scenario: writing it makes me happy, reading it might make other people happy.

Worst case scenario: I pour hundreds of hours into my book, a few small chunks of my soul, and a dash of my sanity only to have it be total and utter crap. Which lets face it, is highly likely.

For all the undiluted opinions I throw out about this book or that book; Twilight sucks, Harry Potter is entertaining but mediocre, Gregor The Overlander doesn't end well, I don't pretend for a moment those books were a cinch to write. It's a little obnoxious that it takes me mere hours to read and pass judgment on a book when in reality an author somewhere poured their sweat and blood into the monumental task of putting eighty-thousand words together in a coherent fashion.

So I would definitely choose in favor of not writing a novel if I could, it's embarassing and a recipe for remorse, but I can't stop. I'm a hopeless case. The story got stuck in my head one day and like pregnancy, it just kept getting bigger and bigger until it had to come out. Like it or not.
Not that I'm entirely pessimistic. I like my story and I like writing. I've got a unmarked white binder stuffed with fifty pages worth of outline and notes on characters, milieu...what they eat and how they spend money. I take the notebook everywhere with me and whenever something strikes my imagination I write it down. I've even pulled over on the freeway to write something before it disappeared into the mom brain malady I suffer from. It has sand hiding in the crevices from trips to the beach, and some of the pages stick together from spitup and pb&j. The outside (nor inside) has a title or label on it anywhere because I was too embarassed to admit its contents to people, contents I completely lost tonight. Took it on a date with Jim tonight, and came home without it. No clue where I left it. I've detailed my penchant for losing wallets and cellphones here before, but this was far far worse. When I told Jim, he looked at me like I'd just announced I dented the car. That's how many hours I've poured into that notebook. Thankfully, Jim could still think clearly and logically despite my hysterics, so a few well placed phone calls to the mall and my notebook was found: Sitting on the counter at Panda Express.
How did I do that?
And what have I done?
Bah.


Anybody else reading this ever started or considered writing a book?