Ticka Ticka

New Year's Eve 2013 about 11:30pm

I was on the couch, stoned from an end of the year bowl when I realized this was going to be the moment I started my novel. I went to the computer and immediately became distracted with Pandora, Facebook and something shining on my desk. I made my way to this blog site and opened a blank blog page. My fingers rested on the keys for a moment and then, without looking at the screen or my fingers, I started humming and ticka ticka-ing on the letters.


Mom used to say she could always tell when I was writing while talking to her on the phone. She'd pause in her conversation and say with amusement in her voice, "Ticka ticka". She'd ask me sometimes what I was writing. Sometimes I told her without prompting. I'd describe the latest plot in a story I'd ripped off from a movie I'd seen within the last six months.

In fairness, I didn't realize I was doing that until just recently. I was watching a documentary on National Lampoon's Vacation and developing a nerd crush on Harold Ramis when it hit me that a lot of my stories were similar to the movies I'd seen. I remember distinctly writing about a family, a brother and sister, on a vacation and having a shitty time... extraordinarily reminiscent of Vacation.

I went through a poetry phase too. Mom paid for my poems to be published in one of those 'send us your poem and we'll send you a book for $44.95 with your poem on the pages' books.  Published! Your words IN PRINT!  God that was amazing for me. I was so proud of myself. I had no idea that anyone could send anything in and they'd publish it.

I wanted to be discovered. I wanted someone to read my stories or poems or journal and think, 'Wow, I GET her. I bet others would relate and pay good money to read this!'

I think that's when I started writing blogs. I joined a writing group for awhile too-back when MySpace was Facebook. I met a lot of good people through that group. I was introduced to a lot of different kind of styles of writing too. Helped me get to where I am now.

I remember thinking about all the different things I could write about in order to be a 'real writer'. I felt discouraged because I could never think of a whole story. I could do dialogue and I love me a thesaurus but my stories were lame. Or I'd write 15 pages and then lose interest in the characters. I thought about writing about mom, about dad, about my childhood, my teen years, my 20s, my depression, my weight, my struggles and triumphs. And then I thought about...not thinking.

I told myself to just write. To get up and sit in front of the computer and if I got distracted, accept that was ok. Just write SOMETHING.

I don't know if this is a resolution. I'm going to call it a promise to myself. I haven't always been very nice to myself and I think it might be time to give it an honest try. I'm lucky enough to have people in my life to help me remember that I am more than my emotions. I want to like who I am ALL the time.

I have no idea what's going to happen to this project, but I'm going to try. I want to do this for me. (I've since realized that eating pizza and ice cream every Friday night as a 'reward' is not really the kindest thing I could do to myself)

I'm probably going to ramble a lot. I might be stoned when I'm writing, I might be crying. But goddammit, it's going to be real. That means I'm going to swear, I'm going to talk about things that are really fucking uncomfortable for me.  I'm worth it.

Ok. Here we go.