Multiple Personality Disorder.

This blog has multiple personality disorder.

Often I tell myself, it's no big deal. It's just a place to record my memories. To give my kids the stories they will surely crave when I have Alzheimer's. It's a family blog.

But I know it's really much more than that. It's my place to practice. To put ideas out there for the world. To write and write and see my ideas are received.

I rarely get comments. And no comments make me a tiny bit sad, but I'm secretly relieved too. Relieved that I'm actually writing to myself, under the guise of writing to the world.

But people comment to me in real life. Someone recently told me how they printed out the post about Brynn flipping the bird and read it to their entire extended family over Sunday dinner. And the family loved it, she reports. Laughed and laughed. And I'm pleased...

... and secretly a little horrified.

Writing is oh so hard and not even because I think grammar is generally stupid. It's actually all the emotion tied into what you write. It's a little piece of you and while rationally you accept that not everyone will love what you write, boy, you sure want them too.

So I go through bouts where I can't blog because the fear keeps me from doing it. And then I get a bit crazy with myself and rant about how if I can't get up the guts to blog how will I ever get my book published, or heck even finished.

And then I start saying things to my sweet husband like, "well this is why Hemingway drank!"

And he laughs and I don't know whether to be flattered or angry. ('Cause that Hemmingway thing is funny.)

I recently read a book called the "Courage to Write. How Writers Transcend Fear." I'm not sure what I was expecting, but basically they said writers transcend fear by knowing they are afraid and writing anyway. Somehow I wasn't even annoyed that it took them 195 pages to say that.

When she was alive, Emily Dickinson published less than a dozen poems. After her death her sister discovered more than 1800 poems Emily had written during her lifetime. I've often wondered about the fear Emily must have felt and the release writing must have been. She was a recluse, completely physically removed from the outside world, so her fears were clearly bigger than just writing, but I wonder if that was part of it.

I don't want to be Emily Dickinson. I don't want you to find 40 manuscripts under my bed when I'm dead. I love the writing, the creativity, the actual act of sitting down with the fingers to keys and pounding out a world that didn't exist before I created it. But a part of me is slightly unsatisfied by my audience of one.

I'm interested in what I write and I find myself wondering if others are too. And then the fear creeps in and I imagine unkind comments and hateful words and I wonder if I can take it. The fear is sometimes so paralyzing I can't even say I'm a writer. Someone will see through my facade and realize I'm just a girl. A silly girl, with a laptop.

But here goes... I'm writing a book. (I realize this is probably the world's worst kept secret at this point. But hang in there with me and pretend like this is a revelation to you.)

I currently have 283 pages. I estimate I'm 50 or less pages away from being finished. Overall I like the story. Certain parts feel a little flat and need revision. Other parts I'm completely in love with.

But I'm currently paralyzed. I've been trying to finish it for months and I literally can't do it. I sit and reread. I know what happens. I see it in my head. And the fear is so overwhelming I literally can not finish writing.

So I know something needs to happen. A catalyst that will propel me from my gloom and force me to finish. Maybe a public admission is that catalyst.

I've written so many iterations of this post and I never post them. The fear won't let me hit publish. What if someone reads this post and thinks, "seriously her?? I would never read her book."

Could I take it? I don't know. Part of me is tough, but another part of me is so completely un-tough. A big mushball really.

But there it is. I'm writing a book. A book I think has the potential to be published. And now my secret is out for everyone to read.

Agh. If only you could feel the deep pit of overwhelming fear in my stomach right now. Seriously kids, this is why Hemingway drank.

But in an effort not to become a raging alcoholic I leave you with these words of hope from my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson.

They might not need me,
But they might.
I'll let my head be just in sight.
A smile as small as mine might be,
Precisely their necessity.

Thank goodness that didn't stay under her bed forever.