Confession Time

Confession Time:

I want to write a book.

There, I said it, and in a little while, I am going to press publish on this blog post, and anyone who casually stops by my little haven in the internet will know too. I have written a lot of things on here since I started blogging, some of them quite personal I suppose, so much so that I now think of myself as one of those over-sharing people, for whom life doesn’t seem to happen unless they tell the world about it, whether the world is listening or not.

You RRs know I’ve been reading a goal setting book, and one of the things that Matthew says is key to realisation of goals, is telling others about them. And I think he is correct in that. Usually if I want to do something I parp on and on about it, boring everyone around me to dust until the groundswell is such that I can’t help but do the thing in question.

Writing has never been like that for me.

I read something by Stephen King (the greatest modern author) years ago where he said that he often has people approach him saying that they too want to write a book. They even outline the plot to him, (as if he could care), talking talking about their amazing book idea, but never doing any of the actual writing. He said that writers don’t talk about writing a book- they just write one. And if my memory serves me correctly, he says they write not so much because they want to, but because they must.

So forever I have kept my secret hidden.

I have always written little bits and pieces for my own amusement, or for a small audience, and I have been kindly received. People who already know, and I assume, like me, have said nice things. Some of them have compared my scratchings to proper authors they have read. Others have said that my scribblings could be a book. I have just smiled a sanguine smile, thanked them and said, “No, I’m a chiropractor.” As though having a real job precludes me from ever doing anything else.

I think it is telling, that a close friend once read this little blog, looked me in the eye and said, “You were born to do this.” I have done lots of cool things in my life. I have had a flukey and fortunate existence, with minimal trauma, and much success. But when my friend said that, I grabbed and clutched that precious gem and squirrelled it away, burying it deep in my heart, just behind the first ventricle, where it could sit, safe and heavy, so I could always know where it was.

Confession Part Two:

I started this blog as writing practice.

That’s it. I didn’t really do it to entertain and interact with you. I didn’t have a great product idea. I didn’t want to be useful to you. I’m sorry lovelies, but as usual. this blog wasn’t all about you, it was all about me. The very idea behind it was to start exercising my writing muscles, for as you know, neurones that fire together, wire together, and I suspected that getting into a regular writing commitment would make the words flow. Which is true. They do mostly, sometimes spilling forth like so much frothy diarrhoea, my fingers flying across they keyboard in a frenzy as the words jostle to be heard.

A friend told me that an author (I think it was Bob Hawke’s wife, Blanche) was asked when the best time to write. She said, “The muse shows up when you show up.” I think she might be right. The problem is eeking out a time to show up. I sometimes feel like making time to write steals from my family, which I cannot do, and also other important and fulfilling tasks like paying phone bills and cleaning bathrooms.

I read a book recently by Cartoon Dave (Dave Hackett) a local guy who I know to be full of energy and fun. I think I kind of assumed he sat down every morning, did a few cartoons, maybe organised his next shoot time for his television show and then put in some good solid writing hours before doing the school run. Then I read in the acknowledgements that he thanked coffee, for all the 4am starts. So writing the book wasn’t necessarily easy for Dave, but he found a way to make it happen.

Confession Part Three:

I hate early mornings.

Always have. I’m a night person, but somehow I don’t think I’m going to get a book written by staying up after midnight every night. Even for me, Night Owl in Big Glasses, it might be too much of a stretch. I am part of a whole lot of closed groups on FB, and one of them is with a bunch of incredibly motivated people who are in a 5am club. They get up every morning at 5am and do STUFF. I am never up at 5am. However, lately the idea has been kicking around in my temporal lobe I think, and it has taken to communicating to some melatonin, and for the last week I have been waking at 4.45am. I don’t like it, not one bit, so I roll over with a huff, and try to go back to sleep. But the idea keeps tickling away at my corpus callosum.

So today, this blog is brought to you by the number 5.

I did it. I got up at 5am (which is not really a big deal- in Queensland we don’t have daylight savings- it would fade our curtains- so at 5am it’s perfectly light, and already warm). Still, it’s a start.

So if this post is particularly long and winding, it’s because I’m partly delirious and mostly still addled with the stuff of my dreams.

Hence the confessional.

I guess it’s like being in the little box, with the priest next door. You know he’s there, you know he’s probably listening, but still you go on. Still you say things that afterwards you wonder why, but somehow the safety of the darkness and the sweet invigoration of getting something off your chest and into the world makes you jump off.

So here goes.

I’m not going to edit this post, or even re-read it, lest I chicken out. Apologies in advance for typos. I’m about to jump. I hope I can fly.

…From The Ashers