You Have to Hate Yourself to Try to Write a Novel

This is my first blogging attempt. Please be kind.

If you've ever tried to write a whole book (and you're anything like me), you can identify with the title of this post, and commiseration is likely what caused you to read rather than discard. Granted there are people who can crank out a full length novel in a month with no trouble, but I hate them (not really Tony. I'm just jealous.), and they have no place in my world (no, really, you do.). In short I want nothing to do with them (I don't mean that.).

As I sat down to put in my daily *smirk* time at the computer hoping to produce some genius nugget, I looked for any distraction to keep me from having to try to summon and tame the muse. One such distraction has been books on novel writing and elements of novel writing. Plot is kinda tricky for me, so I read a bit of one by someone named J. Madison Davis starting in the middle. Chronology was the topic. After reading a bit of J. Madison's take on chronology in fiction I was reminded of some chronological switcheroo I was thinking of doing when I started this novel, keeping things confusing, letting gaps in backstory linger ominous like thunderheads until the big storm at the end when everything was tied together with genius tidiness, all questions answered, all angst relieved in a big cathartic literary orgasm of a finish. Then I would get my 6 figure book deal and we'd all live happily ever after (until I developed my drinking problem later in life and died of liver cancer, but that's too far off to be concerned about now.).

Gallons of coffee and twenty years worth of hand wringing later (condensed into about three months) I have given up on anything cute. It seems a more daunting task than I am up for just to get the thing written, all devices standard, no fancy options, no trick endings. I feel like I'm trying to build a Volkswagen from spare parts as it is, and for all of you who know about my level of expertise in auto wrenching, you can appreciate the depth of that metaphor (simile?).

The thing is, I have no excuse. I have a very serviceable idea for the book. Simple and poignant. I have a job that forces upon me lots of down time in another state which is built in writing time. I now have time at home (waiting for a baby) with a supporting wife who helps me make sure I get four or so hours at least four times a week to write while she in her 14 months pregnant state wrangles the babies who have so far made it to this side and works on her projects to be done before the baby gets here such as eliminating all the piles of paper in the house and organizing every closet, and vaccuuming under all the beds and . . .

I also have good friends who encourage me by calling me names (good and bad), and I just don't think I can do it. So crapping hard. This is a form of torture that is far beyond water-boarding in its severity, but irrelevant to national commentary only because it's self inflicted. You have to hate yourself to undertake writing the next Great American Novel in this day and age. At least, if you share my neuroses, its on par with doing your own dental work.

That said, I got a great idea for my next book the other day and I can't wait to finish this one so I can get started on it.

I must hate myself.