The beginning, where we finally feel the freedom to release the deepest pent up emotions that we dare not share with our closest friend for fear of judgement. Sharing life's most memorable events and cruelest dealings that should have never come our way, but they did. So I will start at the beginning, and oddly enough it is the second attempt at starting at the beginning, the first time ended in disaster, or was it really a blessing in disguise??? My story begins here.....
I gladly accepted the challenge in November 2010 to join the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a project that unifies amateur writers around the world and attempts to inspire each individual to produce a novel in one months time. Was I crazy? I did not have ample time to devote to such an undertaking. My daughter was 2 1/2, I was working part time for my husband, and fulfilling the duties as power of attorney for a relative confined to a nursing facility, which I had no business doing, but that is beside the point. Crazy or not, I was willing to give up sleep to embrace a passion that has engulfed my soul for years, the yearning to express myself in written word. The freedom that comes with each stroke of my keyboard unveils layers of emotions that are so personal to me, and not foreign to others as I have found. The phrase "it's a small world, and gets smaller everyday" rings true within my mind daily. We are all similar whether we like to admit it or not. Our emotions run parallel with perfect strangers or our next door neighbor. We would know that for truth if we only took the precious time we cling to as a starved beast and shared our lives with those around us. Instead we elect to keep to ourselves shrouded in darkness believing no one would understand where we are in life, when truly nothing could be further from the truth.
My husband supported my decision to write. I must give credit where credit is due. He alone has attempted to motivate me for the past 5 years to "WRITE." He cut out the newspaper article out of the Charlotte Observer that outlined the NaNo challenge, he politely handed it to me, kindly adding "you should do this." After much discussion about the number of hours it would take to complete the 50,000 word novel in 30 days, I began to write. It was not hard for me. My life had been horribly crazy for the past 10 months. I needed an outlet to express my emotions, or I felt as if I would loose my sanity.
Although the novel was to be a work of fiction, my story was my life. Names were certainly changed to protect the innocent, but it was about me. The many griefs I had experienced in such a short span of life, the disappointments, heartbreaks, regrets, tears, sadness, and finally the joy and elation that comes from the realization that no ones life is perfect. Life is what we choose to make of it, that is what counts in the great scheme of things. But between the beginning and the end I had many personal lessons to learn, much forgiveness to extend even beyond the grave, and intense growing pains to come face to face with.
I worked very hard, and the sacrifices were more than I had imagined from the beginning, My insanity only intensified as the completion date loomed in my face. It was not uncommon for me to sleep a maximum of 3 hours a night. I was so tired. Now that is the understatement of the century, but by the same token I was thrilled to be completing this incredible work. But, hold on to your seats, because what happened next will leave your head spinning. It was November 29, 2010. I knew that I was 1,500 words from completing my first novel and I could feel every nerve ending in my body standing at attention. I sat down at my computer to write the final thoughts before forwarding my work to the judges. My computer system had performed without a glitch the entire month, until this evening. I opened my saved copy and started typing - my screen went blank...... I closed my system down without saving any changes, rebooted my computer and opened my work again. I began again..... then my screen went blank again.... after repeating the same process of closing and opening, nothing came up...... My head began to reel and throwing up seemed to be my only option. My heart raced, my skin was covered in fifteen layers of sweat, and I was frozen in my chair unable to move. What in the world had just happened..... A cruel joke, a sick twist of fate..... or a realization of stupidity that I had not saved my work on an external device...... It was all on my hard drive - the hard drive that had just crashed. With much deep breathing I was clear enough to call my computer wizard, yes it was 11:00 p.m. and he was in the bed, but this constituted an emergency. He patiently walked me through a multitude of attempts to find the novel sitting out in space, to no avail. "I'll be over in the morning to take a look, will you have enough time to finish if I get you up and running?" I had no idea if that was possible, but I had not sacrificed my time for twenty-nine days to quit now. I would try.
I probably don't need to finish that part of the story, you already know how it ended.... The novel was gone, the hard drive crash had been all encompassing, and nothing was left to salvage. Oh, did I feel stupid..... my husband was sick, and I had just failed the most important exam of my life. But, nothing is a true failure if you take away important lessons from the experience. That I most certainly did.
So, "For the Sake of Sanity", I am going to re-write, if that is even possible, my first novel in the form of a blog. The beginning is quite messy, life can be that way at times. But I am here to help you see that emotions are raw, exhilarating, draining, earth shaking, breathtaking, and most of all mountain moving. The first novel was entitled "An Unexpected Gift." I share that with you because if you make it through the first chapters of the blog you will make no correlation between where the story seems to be heading and the title. You must endure to the very end, it will make since then, you will see the beauty - if you dare.
"An Unexpected Gift" will begin shortly. I hope you will join me on the journey that lies ahead. Beginnings are exciting, you never know where they might possibly lead you. May you be blessed in your life as I have been blessed in mine.
C. Morton
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