I've always wanted to write a novel. I've probably started 10 over the course of my lifetime. Have I ever finished one? No. Not even close. I get bogged down in the details. Can't think of interesting enough plots or characters. Start second guessing my ability to write or be interesting. It's a tough business. This is why I ended up studying editing instead of writing. I just want to FINISH one to say that I did it.
I thought this year would be the year. I have a ton more free time with kids in school, but I'm always torn in a million directions: errands, volunteering at the schools, painting Avery and Izzy's room (that fiasco took 3 weeks!), Christmas shopping, unwinding, cleaning (oh wait, I don't do that), painting the hand-me-down piano we just got (haven't done this yet), a few craft projects for the girls rooms.... There's always something that needs to be done.
My neighbor Dana sent me an email with this link as a Christmas gift she wanted to get me, because it's true: I never finish anything. I have an incredible gift of being able to step over messes and clutter without them bothering me. Leave some mirrored sconces on the floor of my dining room for over a year because I can't decide exactly where I want to hang them. Live without any end tables or coffee table in my family room or chairs for my dining room table because I'd rather wait to find something perfect and have money to buy them. Put uncovered chairs in my den because I haven't found fabric (or really even looked for it). Leave the tissue paper pom-poms I made for Avery and Izzy's room on top of their dresser because I'm too lazy to go to the garage and get the ladder to hang them.
Basically everything in my life is unfinished. Even our family is unfinished. We're still missing that little boy Chad wants so badly :). And so, for 2011, I'd like to finish something. Maybe it will be an article for the Ensign, maybe it will be a novel. Maybe it will be a novel chapter. Or maybe it will be a little boy or maybe it will be my dining room. I don't know what yet, but I want to finish something and I kinda hope it will be novel.
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8 comments:
I've been wanting to do this for a long time as well-maybe when my kids are in school??? I think you should-I love your writing. I'd buy your book :)
I really love this post, I so identify with it. I also have a hard time finishing projects, starting them is just so much more fun, but Carson is the kind who almost has a heart attack if I start one more project without finishing the 10 I'm in the middle of, so I try really hard to reign it in a little. Last year I wanted to get published in a scrapbook magazine but I had that baby girl instead... maybe this year. And you should definitely write a book, you are a fantastic writer, I still think about that post where you went to Chad's office open house in a patterned green maternity dress and everyone else was in black, that was hilarious!
i fantasize about writing too. what a bunch of english nerds. :) love ya.
Yes, yes, yes. It is hard to know what any year will bring. But go for it, I am cheering for you.
I'd buy your book!
And I struggle with the follow-through too. It's evidence of genius I've decided. :)
Your honesty is so refreshing, I relate so much to so many things in this post. Thanks for putting it into words, you really are quite talented!
Maybe you could write a children's book? I'm being serious here... that seems much easier to tackle than a novel, and I bet your kids would love to have a book written by mom!
Things you do finish: really good phone conversations, Pepperidge farm Milano cookies, picking out an awesome runner and mailing it to me, getting an New Era article published, reading & re-reading Gone With the Wind . . . okay, that's all I can come up with right now . . .
Maybe this will be the year of the novel, it's going to happen one of these days! I'm really liking the latest ideas you've got going--writing what you know (like in LIttle Women). You can do it!!!
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