I Get Scared

I’ve been working on a new novel idea, and I’m doing it differently this time. (Hopefully I’ll elaborate on that soon.) At the moment, I’m a little scared. Do you get scared right before you begin your first scene?

I’m so anxious, my chest wall presses up against my sternum. It’s a little tight in there, like maybe my ribs have morphed into squeezing tentacles. A friend reminded me to have fun with this new story. But I’m still taking it all too seriously, probably because I want this fiction-thing to work out. I’ve been disappointed over the last year. Losing agent, languishing finished manuscripts, writing grant fini and day-job sucking at my creative marrow…

I can’t avoid the writing forever — and by avoidance I mean engaging in endless story-development exercises — because at some point the head of steam compels me to set words on paper. I feel uncomfortable and itchy, just gotta start. I’m at the teetering point now. I’ve been here before. The discomfort is familiar, and I’m thankful for that. I’ve worked through it before and will work through it now.

This discomfort in a good sign. The story has almost completed its initial gestation period.

This discomfort differs from that I felt at the beginning of the summer, when I thought I’d never have another story idea. Now that’s the truly scary place! Glad I’m past that.

Last night I feasted at the home of two of my dearest friends. There were 12 of us plus children. I told my friends about this blog, mentioning that I focus on my life as a writer. I said, for example, that I wouldn’t write about our Thanksgiving dinner because we didn’t talk writing or literature or etcetera. Only, here I am doing just that because a disturbing phrase just popped into in my head:

Teabagging Osama

This said at the dinner table while eating turkey and yams (or sweet potatoes? What’s the difference anyhow?) and all good things. Context is everything, believe me. We are mostly sound of mind even if we often stray from the polite topics. I mention the phrase in my blog because my writer-self tagged it. Out of context, it’s unsettling, or funny, or simply yucky — and because of this, potential fodder for a story.

In truth, the phrase made me a little uncomfortable. Just a tad, mind you, because mostly it’s too funny in a yucky way. It reminded me that discomfort is a good thing for writers. We play it too safe with our stories, we fall flat.

That said, I doubt this phrase will make it into my fiction. So I pass it along. I’m thinking a pornographic spy thriller spoof.