L.I.T.E.R.A.L #1: Dreams On Draft Folders And Half-Cold Coffee Cups

QUESTION: Has your book/story/epic been published? If yes, how was the experience, and where can we buy your book? If no (or not yet), why the delay? Is there anything you know you should be doing to make it happen?

ANSWER: Yes and no. Yes, I’ve written stuff that has made it to Youngblood on a national daily, and yes, I’ve written stuff that came out time and again on the university student publication and folio back in college, and here in this litter box for the last four years, but if we are talking about a book here with my name on it, well… it’s a road in the middle of a terrible, terrible construction.

Earlier this year, I maniacally began working on a manuscript, remembering the plot of which never fails to bring a smile on my face. After several long days, the first draft’s finished, my sister and my Babe forced to become the beta readers… and that’s it. I choked.

I know what I have to do really, to get the ball rolling, but I’m too scared of the biggest dream in my life that spans galaxies to actually do something about it. It’s almost pyscho to be honest, and even now just talking about it makes my face contort into disturbing shapes out of anxiety. God, I should be on medication…

When I was in high school, I wrote two novels, printed them out, and had them bound so they look every bit like official books – Oak Hills and damn, I forgot the title of the second one! What an awful author with questionable talent! 😯 But my peers loved them both the moment I proudly revealed the books, though it’s probably crap really. I’ve never had the urge to write a new novel since then, well, apart from my rotting chick-lit manuscript that recently came to this world with the sole purpose of tormenting me, that is.

But one day… one day I’d have that maniacal urge again to edit my work, and it will probably make my nose bleed and some minor arteries on my brain to pop, but it will be worth it. It may not be a part of the NY Bestseller list but at least I can put to rest its ghost that hovers in and around me each time I’d hit the keyboard to waste time on other things that isn’t as huge as the Milky Way – and no, I don’t mean the chocolate bar.

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Photos from here, here, and here.