The Sky is Not Falling

If you've been peeking in here, you've probably noticed that I've taken down the first three posts I've written, and no doubt you've wondered what the deal is. The deal is this: I'm a chicken-hearted writer, and part of the reason I wanted to start this blog was to take a leap of faith, to set up an accountability system of some sort, to report in regularly and honestly on the progress of my novel, and to encourage myself and others like me who begin strongly and then start to think the sky is falling.

The sky is not falling. You're just losing your nerve.

I am convinced that writing is 90% confidence. Maybe 95%, 99. In two days, my husband will attempt his first half Iron Man. He started doing triathlons after his father died eleven years ago. Though he's always been athletic and healthy, he was in no shape to enter such a competition. What I didn't realize is that it wasn't a competition at all. He has never competed with anyone but himself.

He barely finished that first race, but he did finish. And he finished proudly, which I didn't understand. I had stood on the sidelines watching him struggle, re-al-ly struggle, thinking to myself, Oh no, he wasn't ready for this kind of exposure; he's going to be mortified. But none of that ever entered his mind. He was training his eyes on the prize, the finish line. That's all.

Admittedly, I am often too guarded, self-conscious, and critical. He wasn't the only one, I noticed, wearing a get-up that wasn't exactly flattering. He wasn't the only one who needed to shed a few pounds. He wasn't the only one whose bicycle was a piece of junk. He wasn't the only one who appeared to be on the verge of a heart attack.

There are whole categories for athletes far bigger and heavier than he ever was. Men are called Clydesdales. Women are called Athenas. And there they go, proudly displaying their AGES as well as their divisions on the backs of their calves -- A 42. Jogging and jostling and perspiring and digging out wedgies and spitting and climbing on bikes ready to collapse beneath them, then stripping down into speedos and bathing suits and galloping into icy lakes at o'dark thirty. While I sit with a blanket and a cup of coffee and wince, ever so kindheartedly, on their behalf.

I wasn't always chicken-hearted. As a child, I was a tomboy, riding motorcycles in the woods with my father, doing back flips off the high dive, arm-wrestling anyone who'd try me. I took great satisfaction in being what my father and his brothers, my beloved uncles, considered to be tough as a cob. I would accept any dare and never E-V-E-R cry if I got skint or took a lump that was harder than I expected. I climbed trees, climbed on horses, climbed in go karts. I fired handguns at pop cans and potatoes lined up on porch railings. I was absolutely intrepid. And I try, sometimes, to pinpoint the moment when fear became bigger than me, Girl Wonder.

No matter. I'm reclaiming whatever's been lost, here and now. I'm re-posting those old blogs in all their triteness and imperfection and sentimentality. Blogging is a fascinating mode of expression. I'm drawn to it and repelled by it at once. So much of what we say and do online is cringe-worthy. But there is something remarkably bold about it, too, that draws me to it, beckons to me to just let it all hang out, to push beyond vanity for something startling and dangerous and real.

I will still be examining books and trying to parse out what makes them shimmer. After all, there's a good chance I'm talking to no one here but myself, so I may as well do what's useful to me. Maybe it will be useful to some of you as well. But I will also occasionally ramble about other things, writing in general or the current state of my mind or the progress of my book. I will need you to hold me accountable. Don't let me flinch, even if my gut's hanging over my speedos. Even if the sky actually is falling. It's a staring contest, writing is. DON'T FLINCH.