To further implicate myself in the desire to become a writer (and to really nail myself to the wall so I cannot wriggle out of it, much as I'm sure I will try) -- I have signed myself up to participate in two writerly things and one artsy thing.
Writerly Thing #1 -- I have RSVPd for Swink Magazine's The Literary Salon: An Evening of Thinking and Drinking this Saturday night. I know what you're thinking...sounds less like writerly work, more like plain old cocktail hour. There will be readings by Lisa Glatt and Maggie Nelson, and we will dine on refreshments while sipping beer & wine. If only my book would write itself while I spend a few hours drinking and chatting it up with other writers and trying in some way to get the Swink mag editors to stop sending me rejection letters.
Writerly Thing #2 -- By now, you are expecting that writerly thing #2 will be just as inane, innocuous, innocent. You would be wrong. It is National Novel Writing Month. Interesting, right? So, what the heck, I decided I would try to write a WHOLE NOVEL (50,000 words to be exact) by November 30th. What fun. Easy, right? The kicker is, I haven't even started. The nanowrimo message boards are filled with writers, ten days in, feeling they've hit a wall. Hit a wall? I've not even written the first word. But I will do it. And I promise to follow the careful rule they've laid out for me: "Writing the same word 50,000 times end to end does not a novel make." Darn.
Arty Thing -- Given my already busy schedule with writerly things, this, in hindsight, may not happen. But, alas, arty things feed writerly things and so attending the Brewery Artwalk this weekend in downtown LA might just inspire that novel that needs to be written post haste. Who doesn't love to visit artists in their studios? Natch.
I will report progress on all three fronts as the days progress. Will all this writerly work interfere with the brand new blog? Probably. But that's the point, right?