More Writing Samples

The Beginning

From where I am sitting, I can see Paula playing outside on the driveway. It’s 5:24 PM on Sunday afternoon, and I am finding it really hard to begin writing. Isabel is wandering around the house with a sippy cup in her hand and a pacifier in her mouth. Gabe is watching an inane movie on cable TV. It’s a nice, lazy, run of the mill afternoon.

The only thing throwing a damper in this idyllic scene is that this morning I was immersed in one of my intense anger episodes. Or, as Gabe graciously put it, I was being a little monster. “Little” is his way of softening the blow. The truth is I was a gynormous monster. Or, as someone else would say, I was being a total bitch.

But now I am in much better spirits. Why, you ask? I am excited because I have found an outlet. I will spend the month of November writing, attempting to write a 50,000-word novel. I wish I could say that it was my original idea, but it is not. It’s nothing new either. Apparently this national initiative has been going on for a few years. A friend mentioned it on one of my Mommy Boards, and now I am hooked. I am scared and thrilled at the same time.

If I am going to make it to the end of this challenge, I will have to write approximately 1,667 words daily. I did not find out about this until today, so I have some catching up to do. Today is November 5, 2006.

[…]

Well, so much for the infinite bliss. I can’t come up with anything to write about! What the hell am I going to do??

There is something very particular about myself as a writer. I have to be either pissed off to no end, or extremely depressed. I was happy because I had enrolled in this writing challenge, and my happiness equals zero output. I sit here contentedly in front of the computer, the white of the blank page burning my retina.

I guess in order to write, I am going to have to pick a fight with Gabe, or break-out my gloom and doom music CD’s. I hate to be a downer, but if I want to be a prolific writer, I am going to have to be a royal bitch.

Bitching away

I am about as edgy as a butter knife. Has it always been this way? Have I gotten complacent with age?

There was a time when I was a bit more uncompromising than I am now. Have I been spoon-fed crap for so long that I can’t distinguish the good from sheer mediocrity? Do I settle too easily?

And what the hell has brought on this whole meditation on my approach to life? I watched a movie last night. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but I connected to it on an emotional level, so I liked it. I check movie reviews today and it’s been panned. So I start to wonder if my crap radar has been ruined. I thought I had more sophisticated taste. I thought I was Miss Intellectual, Miss Anti-Establishment Extraordinaire. Well, it turns out I am a 38 year-old married mother of two who lives in the suburbs in Texas and drives her daughter to volleyball practice in an SUV.

The Quiet

Sometimes I can’t sleep at night. I wake up, look at my sweet baby sleeping, I look at my husband, also sleeping (and snoring), and I wonder how the hell I got here.

Great, I am living a Talking Heads song.