When I was in fourth grade I read Louisa May Alcott's book, Little Women. I absolutely loved it with all of my heart. I decided right then and there that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, more than anything in the world. I had a wonderful teacher for 4th grade -- Mrs. Brockmeier. Looking back at my elementary years I have to say that I had some absolutely horrible teachers. I'm sure that they did okay with subject matters. After all, I can read and write and do basic arithmetic okay, so I know I was learning something. I was a great student -- or at least I think that I was. But, I was a complete social nitwit, and great teachers are able to work with students intellectually as well as socially. I just have some really pointed memories of my teachers treating some of my social mishaps very badly, with sarcasm or humiliation. And, to make matters worse, I was certainly not the most troubled student in my classes. As bad as my experiences were, some students were treated much worse. I cannot even fathom any of the teachers of my children acting in the way that some of mine did, but it was a different time. But in the midst of some terrible experiences with my elementary teachers, I did have a shining example of greatness in teaching. Mrs. Brockmeier was so kind and considerate. She really nourished and encouraged my love of reading, and once she discovered my desire to be a writer she encouraged that as well. She encouraged me as I started my very first novel. All I remember about it was that my dad, who was a high school English teacher, always had tons and tons of leftover test papers that were lying around the house. I would grab those papers and tear them in half. Then I would staple a bundle together and write my novel on this "book." I wish more than anything that I had kept this book so that I can see it now, but memorabilia doesn't always make it to another day in my parents' house. I'm still a bit sore about them throwing out my high school yearbooks. But, anyway, I don't remember much about this first novel of mine, except that it was very much like a Nancy Drew novel with mystery and an awesome group of friends who help solve crimes. Mrs. Brockmeier heard about my novel and she agreed that we could put on my book as a play for the school. I remember writing a "screenplay" adaptation of the book which the fourth grade teachers edited for content (I had a very naive PG-13 rated mind for a 4th grader -- probably due to too many explicit movies in my youth). The play never came to pass. I only remember that I wanted Amy Lock to play the lead in the play because I thought she was perfect for the role because she was so smart and beautiful and talented and popular. So 4th grade ended without my novel seeing any performance dates, and soon after I became much too busy to think about writing again. Also, I became much more self conscious about having others see the things that I wrote. It seemed like I would be opening my heart up to the world so that they could openly trample on it, and I wasn't strong enough to handle that.
So last night I had the worst time sleeping. It isn't unusual for me to struggle to sleep, at least not lately. It hasn't been that restless sort of sleep where you toss and turn begging your body to relax so that you can sleep. No. I just wake up and lay there, listening to the silence around me while I am comfortable thinking the thoughts that are running through my head. Sometimes I am thinking about Minsy and the changes that will come to our family when she arrives. I wonder how good of an adoptive parent I will be. I wonder how I will be able to comfort her when she is undoubtedly terrified about entering a competely foreign situation -- not just foreign as in American, but foreign as in joining a giant, loud, and mostly unorganized family life.
But, for the past couple of months I have also laid in bed and had a running slideshow going through my head of a book idea. It started last spring when Laney headed to prom with a nice young man named Ryan. For now I won't go into details about exactly what this has to do with my novel, but I joked to Laney a lot that I was going to write a book someday with the lead characters named Janey and Bryan, and those characters were going to be working through some of the same issues that Laney and Ryan had, but with a different result. That got my head to thinking a bit about a story idea. It ended up having nothing at all to do with either Laney or Ryan, but it just kept developing on and on in my head. I would find myself thinking about my two lead characters a lot when I was just sitting around with nothing to do. I would dream about different scenes while laying in bed at night. I could picture the progression of this book perfectly. The images stayed with me, and they weren't just images of pictures and words, they were images of emotion. I even went so far as to write down every single scene idea in a notebook for me to peruse later. As a scene idea developed more fully I would add to the notebook.
I knew that someday I would take the time to fully write this book out so that I could have a finished product, but I am in the midst of this Chinese adoption, and I just could not imagine ever finding the time to write everything out. But last night as I lay in bed and re-examined my story scenes I just thought that maybe I should find a way to make the time to get this into a novel form right now. The scenes are just so concrete in my head right now. I almost feel this drive to get it done. I thought that if I were to just take one hour a day I could throw out a chapter a day and have a rough draft done by the end of September. Then I could devote all my energy to completing Minsy's adoption and then take some time to edit and improve my draft. It could be done. I know I could do it.
Now that my mind was wrapped around the idea of actually jumping in and completing this book I started to panic. The book idea I have is a niche market kind of idea. It would be a contemporary romance, but one that was specifically geared to the LDS audience. I'm sure that others could appreciate the romance of it, but the particular struggle that my lead character would be facing would seem confusing to a non-LDS audience, I think. Maybe not. Probably it would just seem like a ridiculous problem to be facing, but I know that even at 16 Laney is facing similar dilemmas as she dates different young men, so it is something that I recognize easily. I don't want to really explain more in depth because I want to get my ideas into a novel before I try to debate it in any other forum. But thinking about writing this down where others can critique it gives me a major case of the heebie jeebies. I can't just send a manuscript off to Deseret Book without having some other people at least read it and give me some feedback. But who could I ask to do this? I could ask Laney and Savannah because they love reading so much, but I'm convinced that Savannah wouldn't care for it. She isn't a big fan of romances. Laney is more inclined to like this type of book, but something holds me back from sharing it with her too. I think I just don't want to let her read something that I wrote and then see in her eyes that she thinks that it is terribly hokey. That actually goes for anyone I know and care about. I hate the thought of putting something out there and then having my friends read it and give me that "Bless Her Heart" look. You know what that is -- the very indulgent look people give one another when they are just giving it their all and failing miserably.
And that doesn't even count what terror enters my heart when I think about strangers reading something that I wrote and writing reviews of it. I have been writing reviews of the books I read on goodreads.com for the past year. I really love the chance I have to get my thoughts on books out there for others to see, and I also love to have them for me to read later because my opinions and feelings about books evolve as my experiences in life change. But I have to say that some book reviewers are downright mean. They are cruel as they explain just how much they hate particular books. I try to be nice in my reviews, even of the books I don't like so much, because I know that the writers have invested some of themself into the books they write, and it isn't fair to rip them to shreds. However, others don't have that sort of filter. I can't imagine writing a book, getting it published, and then having to read someone berate me for my lack of originality, cheesiness, or something like that. It would hurt, and I'm not sure if I could handle it.
But last night as I lay in bed thinking all these things I kept thinking that I was feeling almost an overwhelming drive to do it. I don't know if it was some sort of heavenly push or if it was just my own determination, but I felt like I had a duty to jump in and complete this task. I know better at this time in my life than to try and understand exactly why I am moved to do things. It might be because there is a great market for this story out in the world. It might be because I will learn something about myself as I craft this tale. It might be because this book is only meant to have one audience, and that is the audience of my family. Maybe they have something to learn in the message that I write. Who knows? I certainly don't. But I'm ready to take the plunge and put myself out there. I feel just like the guy in the picture above. I'm leaping out into a situation that seems terrifying, having some faith that I will land softly at the bottom of the unknown. But I'm going to stand tall, having some courage for once, knowing that even if all of this fails miserably, I still have a wonderful loving family that will support a failed writer in their midst. Here's to an exhilerating jump!
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