write a book dedicated to my son

This one is a very important goal for me, but I’m just not ready to do it just yet. I’m just going to give this one some time before I come back to it.

One of my friends lost her baby at the beginning of this year; I lost my son about ten months ago. Her solution is to get pregnant again right away. But that hasn’t been my answer, despite the yearning I have often to cradle my son in my arms. I want to rediscover my fascination and pleasure with life again, and I want to write something beautiful for and about him. But I see that will take time to ponder, plan and grow.

So I will put this goal away briefly and come back to it when I am ready.

Today I wrote an outline and elements I’d like to include in this novel. It will also include a preface with how I came up with the idea to write it. I wrote my first 1,000 words today, and figure that if I write a thousand words five days a week from now till the end of April, I should have a minimum of 54,000 words. Enough for a short novel.

I was surprised by the 1,000 words today, because I came upone some memories that I had forgotten. And it was good to use them. Took me about two hours to nail it.

Yep. It was as weird as it sounds. Since I’ve begun keeping fish tanks, this has become a semi-regular feature of my dreams. I won’t go into details about what the rooster looked like, but this dream was significant, because it was the first one that introduced me to the personality of my son. He turned out to be very smart, and he was a jokester.

When I woke up, I wrote down as much as I could remember, though I lost a lot of it too. But I think I have a solid idea for this book now. Whether I can pull it off or not is another thing. Most of it is still unfleshed but I have the arc of it.

I felt very happy during and shortly after I woke up. But for the rest of the day, I felt sad and unfocused, distracted.

I’m revisiting this goal. In the last couple of months, I didn’t think I would be able to get this one done. But today, I’m thinkin’, maybe I’m still in the running. I have a couple of essays done already and just keep reworking them. And I can visualize at least half of the book at this point.

Most of all, I would really like to have this book written in honor of my son. So that our year apart won’t have been a complete waste.

I haven’t been making progress on this goal, though ironically, everything that I write that is not a part of this book is really a part of this book. It’s about my son, and me dealing (not very well) with his absence.

On the weekend I created an informal blog dedicated to writing stories for and about him, called The Necklace of Stories, but it is not accessible to anyone but myself. I cried when I wrote to him.

As I was cleaning out a room, rearranging books on shelves, and putting all my piles of photos in a stack, I was reminded that I had a life once, before he came along. I spoke the words aloud: “Aidan, your mommy used to have a life before you came along” and strangely, it made me feel a little more hopeful.

I used to be a traveler and an adventurer, backpacking alone, staying in hostels in the US and Europe; teaching a stint in Japan; hung out with friends and laughed about our problems. I wrote, but not so much. I had a job that drove me crazy, but I had a job, and the people whom I worked with were family to me. I used to have a sense of humor.

I need to scrutinize this road map that is my life and re-orient myself. Returning to my former life is not an option.

I’ve really been lagging on this goal. It’s been three weeks. I owe word count like I owe money. Better get to catching up on this one. It’s just too sad to face, if I don’t face it on a daily basis.

Seems like I’m always using the weekend to catch up on my word count. But 20,000 words a month is an achievable goal for me. I think I can keep this up for the rest of my life, writing one book a year. The key here is easy expectations.

Another bad day for me. By “bad”, I mean wishing I could just curl up with my knees to my chin and just lie on the couch and let the DVD player just run movies one after another. Or starting with a bottle of wine and then another and another, till my self could be erased. Or sedatives. Or sleeping pills.

But I’ve been good. I just wrote. One day at a time.

I gave myself a break today. I wanted to write but was busy polishing my resume so I ran out of time. Definitely will write tomorrow. It’s become a sort of release and lifeline for me so I’ve strangely been looking forward to it.

Almost caught up. Today I spent an hour and a half and it was easy. The words just flowed! I could have written more, but had trouble sitting that long.