You Thought I Was Kidding

I was totally not kidding when I named this blog. I put up this blog page on June 25th and I'm finally putting up my first post. I feel uncomfortable. I'm not writing about infertility so I hardly know what to say.

But I have to WRITE. It's what I'm supposed to do. I've known since I was a kid that God made me to be a writer. When I was young I wrote all the time. I was pretty good. I mean for a kid my age. I got better as I got older. But I kept it quiet. I didn't read anything I'd written in public until my 30th birthday. I got an incredibly positive reception. Which of course scared the living crap out of me.

So many things had happened before that point. Like the poem I wrote the day my grandfather died. I showed it to an uncle whose only response to was to correct my spelling. Then there was my first love who I wrote tons of poetry for... poured out my soul... stroked is ego ("you know you're good when they write you poetry" he said) and still got dumped when his other girlfriend (What! Whoah, what?!) got knocked up. Or the guy I dated when I first moved to California. He wrote me poetry... beautiful poetry he could recite by heart. But I didn't love him. So when he begged me I wrote a poem for him (an extremely conflicted love poem, admittedly). He called the poem selfish. Said it was about him but for me. (Uh, yeah so?) Told me all of my writing was selfish. Hurt me so bad I stopped writing for almost two years. But it turned out I dumped the wrong lover. I should have dumped him instead. I later learned that the beautiful love poems he'd written me were word for word plagiarism of songs by John and Vangelis... no wonder the little shit could recite them from memory. Music makes one hell of a mnemonic device.

I started writing again after that. But I don't think I've completely recovered from the two year separation from my true love... my true self.

I don't know. Maybe that's just an excuse. Maybe it's all crap. Maybe I'm just a coward.

I have a lot of problems. Loads of debt. I'm 42. I want a baby. My husband and I have been trying for 3 years. Infertility is a bitch and we're running out of time for biological parenthood. I mean I can live with it either way... but my heart aches. I pray for answers. But all God ever tells me is: WRITE.

I have to have faith in that. But it just seems too simple. Too easy. Too impossible. Still. WRITE. I mean it's God talking. I know that. I REALLY know that. But I am petrified.

My friend Carmen, her boyfriend Kerry, my husband Michael and I are starting a think tank. The four of us are all in our late 30's, early 40's and totally dissatisfied with our lives. We are however, friggin' geniuses. We're all talented, creative and passionate. And we want more from our lives. But we've also been guilty of procrastination, laziness, bad decisions and fear at one time or another.

We had our first preliminary meeting to discuss the purpose of the group. Kerry posed a very interesting question. What would you do if someone came to you and offered to invest $100K in you? The catch is you can't spend it on anything personal and you do eventually have to pay it back. So how do you use that money to make money to achieve your dreams? The whole idea of the question is make you put together a business plan for your dreams. Something most people never do. Something I never even thought to do.

I have to say, it stumped me. But this morning as I was brushing my teeth I suddenly knew what I'd have to do with the money. I'd have to finish one of those novels that I started but never finished. I'd have to self-publish it for real (not just on Blurb.com like my other book). I'd have to put together a real marketing plan. Sell it to book stores. Set up my own book tours. Really market myself. Rain down a storm of letters to publishers and agents. But here's the key... the whole marketing plan only works if I do One Key Thing first...Want to guess what that is?

See why I'm petrified?