Where's my horse, I need to get back on it!

Ugh! I love that word. To the grammar experts of the world, yes, I realize it hardly counts for a real word. It's an audible expression of disgust. But for me those three little letters encapsulate my frustration and exhaustion whenever you've taken a writing hiatus and are trying to hop back on the proverbial horse. I'm exactly 51,567 words into my first book (a.k.a. the half way mark). I'm at a scene where the heroine stands up in front of 500 people and has to say something profound. Something that transcends past generational gaps, races and gender differences to reach everyone in the audience. No pressure or anything!

I've been avoiding this scene for the last three weeks. I even stopped to design this nifty blog and website. Now I'm blogging in my new blog about it... lol. New level of avoidance? Probably.

Better late than never?

Set up: Published Author (PA) gets in line behind starry-eyed Wannabe (WB) at the Cyber Space Blogging Bar.

PA taps WB on the shoulder. “So, first blog hey?”

WB looks around anxiously and then whispers, “Is it that obvious?”

PA: “Ah no, I just noticed the copy of Blogging for Dummies in your hand.”

WB: “Oh.”

PA:  “Why?... Are you nervous?”

WB: “Kind of. I’m not sure what to say.”

PA: “Say anything. There’s no hard fast rules to this stuff.”

WB: "I guess I'm just afraid that my anything won't be witty enough or some Oprah 'ah-ha' moment. By the way, wasn't John Cusack cute in Say Anything?”

PA: “Heck yeah he was!”

*The sound of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” fills the bar.*   

WB looks shocked. “Wow, that’s ironic!”

PA shrugs. “Not really. You’re the one writing this blog.”

WB: “Oh. Right.”

PA: “So, why don’t you talk about how you got interested in writing stories? You've probably loved books ever since you were a child, right?"

WB shakes her head.

PA looks surprised. "No?"

WB winces. “I know, it's weird. I thought of reading as absolute drudgery when I was in school.”  

PA: “Oh. Well, I'm sure if you weren't always reading stories growing up you must have been writing them?”

WB shakes her head again. “I only wrote poetry as a kid.”

PA: “Then why the sudden interest now?”

WB grimaced. “I can’t say.”

PA: “Oh come on. It can’t be that bad.”

WB: “Let’s just say I saw a certain movie a couple of years ago, then bought a certain book, then bought  the whole series of books and I was hooked! I needed more! Before long I had devoured over 50 books in six months.”

PA looked at WB knowingly. "Twilight?"

WB quickly covered her face. The sound of her voice muffled behind her hands: “Yes.”

 So there you have it. My secret source of shame. Not so much Twilight (if that's what you were thinking), but that it took me hopping on some pop culture bandwagon to discover what others have known all their lives... The joy of reading. The fact that this new found passion gave me another outlet for an old love of mine (writing), is just a plus.  I guess it's better late than never.