.jpg)
Like Latayne, I'm preparing to start a new novel. But unlike Latayne, I'm going solo with Patti-specific ideas. Beauty or beast, the ideas are all mine. Let me explain how I feel about that.
Rather schizoid, actually.
Party Patti wants to believe her ideas are effervescent in their beauty. They are the perfectly dressed woman who walks into a party, and everyone there wants to talk to her--men and women. She has a wide-eyed intelligence and a sense of welcoming that makes her approachable and endlessly entertaining.
Party-Pooper Patti knows her ideas are old chestnuts that should have been taken out with the trash. So she lurks in the kitchen, hoping no one will notice she arrived in the blouse she has worn all day or the spots of spaghetti sauce on one breast. She trembles over being asked what she's working on. Her elevator pitch is three pages long! Her plot is convoluted. The premise...well...what is the premise?
I hope I'm not the only one.
Am I?
You will admit that you're a bit schizoid, too, right?
This is the truth of it. We all want to be heard, but the part of us that is looking for a campfire where we can tell our fabulous stories (publishing contract?) is at odds with the part of us that fears rejection, exposure, and humiliation.
This is the tension we must face to start a novel, or if you prefer a more dramatic metaphor: These are the demons we wrestle to get to the computer to muss that first page on the screen. This may be the very phenomenon we're calling procrastination.
What are we to do?
I would tell you to put your butt in your chair and start writing, but they're telling us that all this sitting is killing us. We should be writing as we walk on a treadmill. Now, we have a fear of falling to overcome. (Picture included, so you'll know I'm not lying.)
Do you feel this tension when starting a novel? (Please say you do even if you don't. My dentist already called me neurotic this week. Honestly, I could use a pack of co-ninnies around me just now.) How do you work past the tension (demons!) to start your novel? Is anyone out there walking and writing at the same time? Is that wise?
