What I Should be Doing

I am here right now in order to avoid writing what I should be writing. I know that. I accept that. I need to change that.

I joined (is that the right word?) a writing group. I went to my first meeting last week and it was so neat. I've never been in a writing group before so I had absolutely zero idea what to expect. Listening to a group of women talk about something that I love to do, something that we all have in common, was wonderful! I even contributed to the conversation a little which is sort of a big deal for me. I was so nervous, but am so glad that I went.

I volunteered to go next and committed to writing part of a story that I've been thinking about for a long, long time. I'm not going to detail it here but the idea came from a conversation that I had with my grandma a couple years before she passed away. Until this week it has been just a thought. I had not written a single word about it. So far this week I have hammered out the themes and started on the plot. I'm still working on the characters a bit...they don't even have names yet. (No, really. They were just assigned a gender today.) My goal is to have 10 pages done by this weekend. Right now I'm not sure if they will be beginning pages or somewhere-in-the-middle pages, but 10 is the magic number. It's not many, but I'm still trying to figure out some of the major plot points.

To say that I am nervous about turning this stuff in is an understatement of the nth degree. I'm so afraid that I'm not up to the task of writing out these characters' stories! I have great faith in the story; not so much in the storyteller. I'm going to have to get over that, though. Even if I don't get it right the first time, it's my story! I can redo it as many times as I need to in order to get it right.

I just have to get started!