When I got the rejection from the agent a little over two weeks ago I felt like quitting the blog. I am not sure what the agent’s response had to do with my blogging but my first knee-jerk reaction was to stop writing and never write anything but a check ever again and not even that if I could just use my debit card everywhere. I told some of you that I thought about taking down the blog and you wisely told me to not make any big decisions in this state of mind. I agreed and decided I would give myself thirty days not to make any decisions. I wouldn’t take down the blog and I wouldn’t decide what to do next. I would just hang out until 30 days had passed and then I could decide what I was going to do next.
Now, while I suck at math I am aware it hasn’t been thirty-days since I got the email of rejection but I feel like I have cooled down enough to make some rational decisions. I have decided, for now, not to send my book proposal about the “I” word to any other agents. Truth be told I am feeling a bit sick and tired of thinking, talking and writing about infertility. Maybe in time that will change and as I have nearly half of a book written it is probably wise to finish it at some point—but for now I feel like filing it with the play, the novel I wrote over in ten days( you can imagine what great quality work that was) over 14 years ago and all of the homework I did in college and grad school( yes, I have every paper I every wrote in a file cabinet at Valencia Store-Ur-Crap).
What, I think I have decided ( thanks to Igor, WendyB, B, Anna Lefler, and Jamie)is that I am going to write a novel. Jeeze, I feel scared just typing that. I feel like as soon as I typed those words that the muses, who have seemed to have lived in Valencia ever since I arrived here and because of their proximity have graced me with inspiration, motivation and an endless energy, have just called Bekins Movers and are moving far-far-away and that they will never-ever-ever visit me again. Even with that fear I have decided I am going to do it. I am going to write a novel and it may suck and it will, I promise you, be the worst first draft of a novel in all of recorded history. I will not let the suckiness of that first draft stop me from writing it.
Here is my plan: I am going to take the advice of Carolyn See in Making a Literary Life and I am going to commit to writing 1000 words a day, M-F, of this crap novel( no need to encourage me and tell me it isn’t going to be crap. I am just saying that so as to allow myself to have no expectations that my writing needs to be brilliant in the first draft or maybe ever). I even bought a special notebook today (which is necessary marker for any new beginning) and I am taking notes and I am writing every thought I have about my story( of which I can assure you you know much of as my novel is just my life that you read here only with more details and dialog) and so far I am feeling like I might really be able to do this.
I have also decided, even though it hasn’t been 30 days, that I am going to cut down on my blogging so I can really get this crap novel done and get back to blogging more quickly.
My blogging plan is pretty simple: I am thinking that from now on I will post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I am planning to do one Lily post a week ( as how can I help but), one “Writing in Valencia” post and one “We are going to France in May” post which will recount each detail of my upcoming trip and occasional Igor inspired posts. Now, there will be weeks when I break those rules and write more often or about different topics but that is pretty much my plan.
If you all knew how much time I spent on blogging you all might be doing a group intervention and suggest I go into a good Internet addiction unit. So, as addicted as I am to all of your blogs and I am( I read over 200 of your blogs everyday and comment regularly) I am going to have to limit how much time I spend commenting on blogs. It is my hope to cut down my blog reading and commenting to the days I post on my blog. Golly it is scary to say that. Yet, I don’t want to not write the novel because I was instead spending four hours a day writing comments.
Please, hear me, I am a co-dependent blogger. I love you all so much and I love it when you comment and I love learning more about you and what you think. I love your blogs and I would hate it if you thought that I had just…. I don’t even know what I am afraid that you will think. I guess, truth be told, I don’t want to lose you as readers or as friends because I can’t write, read and comment five days a week. Feel free to tell me that my plan is a crappy one and that I have my head up my tukis and that I can’t write fiction and that not only should I not cut down on blogging days but rather I should up my blogging to seven days a week. I can take it.
