I Started a Thing and It Feels Really Good

 I did something big and scary yesterday. I started writing a novel in verse.

I LOVE novels in verse. If you've not read one or have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a few to start with so you can get the feel.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Sold by Patricia McCormick

The ones I listed are all young adult or kids books. The idea of a novel in verse is not new, there are some from way back, but they've become, for a variety of reasons, much more trendy in children's and young adult books over the past several years. And I love them. I really love reading them. Something about them speaks to me. 

I've learned over the past couple of years that I actually enjoy writing poetry, which is something I never expected, particularly free verse which is generally the choice of novels in verse. 

I dabbled with novel in verse a little bit for my 2019 National Novel Writing month but it didn't go well. I tried to write it like I would a novel but in verse and tried to go beginning to end plus my topic was for adults. I'm not sorry I attempted it but it was not successful. 

For the past couple of months, I've been feeling quite sad about my writing. I feel like I'm in my 40s and have spent basically all my life being someone who was going to be a writer. I'm tired of following authors who are finding success so much younger than me. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time not writing. And yet I was having trouble attempting a novel...it felt very overwhelming. I've done novel manuscripts in the past...nothing that's gone past a second draft yet but I've done it and it's very hard to sustain. I have a lot of...beginnings...and a very few things that have gotten beyond that.

Yesterday I was tired of not writing. So I pulled out a typewriter and started writing poems. 

I only have a very general idea of my story. Which is terrifying because generally that's how I lose momentum and stop. But when all you have to do is write one poem at a time it feels less overwhelming. So I put one sheet of paper in the typewriter, free write a poem, take it out, and then repeat. They're not in an order yet but a general plot is taking shape a little bit. And I can move backwards and forwards in time as I go and move them around later.

I'm still at the beginning of the process and frankly terrified of putting a lot of work into nothing. It's funny...yesterday is the day I started this and also the day we (finally!) had our new front door installed. So Jack the door installer was doing his thing and the kids were watching him (it's fascinating.) And of course he could hear the typing so he asked what I was working on. I told him a novel, kind of trying to keep it light like this is the kind of thing I do all the time and I'm an old pro at it. I didn't go into more detail than that. And I won't here except to say it's a deeply personal subject matter and something I probably have needed to write for a long time. 

Yesterday I wrote ten poems. Today I wrote probably a similar amount. I haven't counted them. I bought more paper and a folder to put them in. I figure to get to a novel length work will take around two hundred. So far I haven't had to push for content. It just keeps coming out. It feels good to be doing it and at least right now it feels sustainable so that's something. Two hundred poems is a huge mountain to climb but not worrying right now if they go in order or if we get a concrete beginning to end plot is helping. I'm usually a very chronological beginning to end thinker so this is a whole new way of doing writing for me but it is working.

So that's the thing top of mind right now. The big news on the Covid front is I do have a vaccine appointment for Monday. James will be in school and dad is going to come play with Max. I hate shots and am not excited at all about the idea of getting vaccinated but am very excited about the idea of being vaccinated, yay science. I am getting the Moderna shot so I should get a second dose in about 4 weeks, it has not been scheduled yet. Josh's second dose is scheduled for May 10. I would say the majority of people in my close friends and family circle have been vaccinated or are receiving second shots now. The estimate is that fifty percent of adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose. The numbers are climbing again and the Covid thing continues to rage, so getting vaccinated feels like literally the least I can do, so that's a thing.

Tomorrow is Seattle Independent Bookstore Day which my BFF and I were going to take James out for last year and it was cancelled so we are doing it tomorrow. We are hoping to hit right around three bookstores. If we purchase something from ten local bookstores over the next ten days (in person or online) we can get a tote bag. I don't know if we'll make it but it seems like a worthwhile goal. 

Media consumption: finished the first season of Growing Pains which was odd and have fallen back on more How I Met Your Mother which at this point I've seen so much it's just noise. I have The Donna Reed Show just out of the library for some retro TV flashback but haven't started it yet. The kids and I watched the 1950 Disney Cinderella today (we hadn't watched a movie in awhile because the weather has been so darn good) so I think I'm going to watch Ever After tonight because that's the best Cinderella movie prove me wrong.

I just finished reading A One-Handed Novel which was an odd book but I liked it. Very sexy. It's about a single woman in her 40s with MS who is told by her neurologist that she only has six orgasms left and the journey that information takes her on. Locally published in British Columbia. I'm glad I read it. I've been doing this Spoonie Book Challenge on Bookstagram where my goal is in each month of 2021 to read a book with disability or chronic illness representation. It's been super interesting. 

It's also Ramadan so I've been reading books about Muslim girls. I'm finishing up The Garden of my Imaan. It's a kids' book and for a pretty young audience but I like watching this young girl's journey of faith. I'm also rereading The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise on audio which is a very beautiful and very sad book. 

Today I'm thankful for typewriters, writing, poetry, Fridays, bedtime, bookstores, my new front door, junk food, flowers, hammocks, good weather, road trips, libraries, reruns, baseball, and my family and my dad.