Semi Bibliophobia

Thursday afternoons are slow at work. We go to press on Thursday, so things for reporters are nuts on Wednesday, trying to get the last stories in, but on Thursday the editors are the ones who are swamped with layouts and edits.

This leaves me with mellow time to think about stories I'm starting on, stories I've read in the news, and general nonsense. Recently I've been thinking about my alleged next great American novel. (I used to say I would write the NGAN, but now I'm going to say it's an ANGAN because at this point it's still more hot air that concrete fact I can check.)

I haven't written in about a month. When I was at TCU, I worked on it regularly through my junior year. (I formulated the concept second semester sophomore year; it was actually something I'd kinda kicked around since junior year of high school.) Senior year it became sporadic, and in grad school I decided it needed a major overhauling.

Now I'm daunted because I feel like I'm starting from scratch again. There's so much work to do. Even if this never gets published and no one ever reads it, it's still something I have to finish at some point in my life just for personal satisfaction. It's like an odd, slow itch, way deep down in my organs, maybe wedged behind my pancreas or something. It comes and goes. I can't scratch it because it's too far deep in my gut. But when it starts twinging, it's all I think about, usually for a few days at a time.

It's not just that I'm intimidated by the sheer amount of work. It's that I'm intimidated by what it all means. What does it really require, to put myself out there by pouring so much of myself into writing something that might be absolute shit? It's almost as bad as thinking about what if it were good. I'm not sure I'd want my name affiliated with it in any way. For a long time I've thought that I might need a pseudonym. (This is jumping so far ahead of myself, I know, but I also have plans for what I'd like to wear if I were ever invited to the White House.)

I write almost every day. I'm a journalist, a writer by trade, and I love my work and I love my words. Sometimes I put out stories that are lackluster or crap, and I accept that. But it's not something that's purely out of my head. And once a story is out, it's gone, there's a new one. Such is the nature of newspapers and short attention spans.

But to actually write something that would be bound is much more concrete. My failure (or triumph) could lurk on my bookshelf for decades or get passed down for generations. (You grandmother Liz wrote this. She never got it printed because she was too afraid of rejection, and we couldn't get it published because it's not that great.)

I'm really, really afraid of the whole undertaking. It's in part because I'm afraid what others will think of what's going on in my head. It's taken me years to even admit that much. It's part of the reason why I'm so neurotic about it: I won't discuss the topic or plot or characters or ANYTHING with anyone, even those who will be kind but honest. I think I'd rather only people I didn't know or who I'd never met in person read any of it.

And yet I'm perfectly okay with posting about my obsessive worries on the Internet, where anyone can find it. Go figure.