Stability Is Nice, But I Want Art Too

The snow is here. It's just a couple of inches, and it's been a few days since it snowed, so it looks all used and shitty in that weak hazy sunlight. You know what kind I mean. It's that early winter/late autumn sunlight that makes everywhere look like Gary, Indiana. People complain about the lack of sunlight in the winter up here because the weather patterns of the lake usually keep it pretty overcast, but I think gray skies are just aesthetically better than the kind of sun we can get this time of year. Then again, I'm not prone to SAD--my depressive episodes tend to be independent of the weather.

Now that the obligatory Midwestern weather talk is out of the way, I can talk about more important things. Though I can't really think of any. I'm trying to write a novel, in large part because I want to not have to work anymore. Because of course it would be a best-seller and I could LIVE LARGE by just cranking out a book every couple of years. That's how it usually happens, I hear. <----(sarcasm). Honestly, though, I do really want to just do it, to see if I can and see if it's a viable option. I've been telling myself I would give it a go for a while now. Plus, it would be awfully dreamy to stay at home and write for a living, keeping my RN license in order to go off for short disaster-relief stints around the world. Something about finally having an actual career has given me the push to get going on this--it feels like it's now or never, although that's certainly not true. Not being distracted by stress over money worries seems to be helping, too.

The hard part is getting it off the ground. I've got a decent idea for a story, and I know where I want to take it. I think my main problem is taking my time in getting there. I tend to rush ahead, thinking about what comes next, and then I realize I've whipped through a section that really should have had more detail, and then I stare at the screen for twenty minutes trying to figure out what to do about it. Maybe I need to think about it less like a whole story for now and more like my master's thesis and break it down chapter by chapter. I'm also pulling in a lot of my own experience with Rich's death, because I can't really seem to get around that, but it's not a memoir and it's not really based on what actually happened--more like what I desperately wished I had done and wanted to do. Striking that balance is tricky sometimes.

Anyway. I think it will be good. Or at least decent, because I am no fan of shitty writing, including my own, and I won't be responsible for more of it floating out in the world. I hope I finish it before next fall (not an arbitrary deadline, but a subject for another time). Here's to a creative winter.