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2002-07-21
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea magnifica culpa: Okay, so I *didn't* get around to writing posts the other day. Please forgive me. Life got in the way (as it has a tendency to do) and I got quite busy.
Plus, Friday night & Saturday morning are my prime visiting times with Elena, so I was on Mommy duty much of the time. Yesterday, after we dropped Elena off, we went to the movies (Men in Black 2, highly recommended), shopping, and when we got home I was so tired I just conked out in bed after finally finishing off the latest Pratchett book I've been reading, Moving Pictures (also highly recommended).
This was around six pm, mind you.
So by around two or three, I was quite ready to get up. It's now 4:13am by my computer clock, and I'm going to see how many posts I can manage here before five, at which point I'll go read and take notes in the other room.
My schedule's really odd lately, and I know that's something I'm supposed to watch for because of my condition. I just want to reassure everyone that I'm feeling *fine* these days, taking my medication, et cetera. I was feeling quite horribly stressed before David got his new job last week, but things have improved drastically since he started work.
So, I've decided to write a book. A big book. I hope to have it in hand by Christmas. If it turns out there are only five copies which I have made at Kinko's and hand out just to close friends and family, and not even they really even bother to read the thing, that's okay. Because I need to write this book for *me*, to say what I need to say.
Though I figure at least one person besides me, somewhere, someday, will think that my book is worthwhile, and be glad that I wrote it. So I'm doing it for them, too.
But, I hear you in the peanut gallery crying, we've heard dramatic pronouncements from you before, Beth, yet you're the laziest person we know and we keep seeing all talk and no action from you. And I would say that you have a point.
But keep this in mind, dear peanut gallery: the last time I felt the need to write something big and important, a need so strong that it sort of took me over for a little while, I churned out 40,000 words in three days of frantic writing. That was a bit excessive and I didn't get enough sleep and so on when that happened, but what I'm trying to show is that I've got, or at least had in the past, a nice little pipeline into my noggin from whichever Muse controls these things. He / she / it / they know where to find me, in other words.
And so I have begun. I take lots of notes on 4 x 6 cards as I go through reading the book We've Got Blog. It's slow going, since I keep getting more and more ideas about the book I'm going to write, and I have to pause and write out notes about that before I can go back to writing notes about WGB and underline stuff and write in the margins.
And here's another thing about the book-to-come: I'm going to do it all myself. Why? Because I feel a compelling need to, that's why. More than just a want to, even. I have to show what I can do all on my own. If it's the kind of thing that merits a revision later, then I will accept some input from other people on the revision, but that will come later on.
For now, I need to get my ideas out as quickly and as well as I can, and frankly it would slow me down considerably to have to listen to someone else's opinions about what I'm writing, especially since I imagine most of the discussions would go something like this:
"Hey Beth, you should say something about ."
"I have a whole chapter about ."
"Hmmm, but you left out ."
"That's because I'm focusing on other things. Leave me alone, write your own darn book! Argh!"
And then subsequently I'd be going round in circles in my head, losing my original vision, as I wonder to myself "What if they're right and I really should go into huge detail about and all that?" and the dang book would *never get finished*.
Bah! Just deride me as another fool who thinks she's a mad, lone genius or something. Snicker away while I write, and then we'll chat after you've read my book, okay? I just don't have the time to deal with criticism about a work that isn't complete yet.
