Wow, I suck at writing.

Well, not writing exactly, but I suck at consistency. Perhaps that is how I should put it. So, obviously the training blog went well (see previous post). I did stick with the training, and ran the marathon, and am training for a second one ... so at least I stuck with that part of it. You would think, with all my spare time this blogging thing would be a no brainer. After all, I think to myself all the time that I want to be a writer.

About that. There are three things in particular that inspire me to write (excluding my bff's starting their own blog and mentioning me oh-so-graciously in it). The first: NPR, particularly This American Life. One, I wish Ira Glass were my Uncle. He is the best. Two, the stories are so simple, yet so insightful. I really enjoy that kind of writing, the kind where it is just an everyday story from someones everyday life, but it is super interesting because it is told in some simple yet profound way. And while it seems like it would be such a simple thing to do, I am aware that it is not.

The second thing that inspires me is reading books of essays such as David Sadaris or Sloan Crosley. Their writing is similar to This American Life in a way, it is usually just simple stories from their lives, but they are interesting. I have a deep yearning to be interesting.

The final thing is books on tape. Not any book on tape, but particularly the book Underworld by Tom DeLillo (review here: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,289625,00.html). I actually only got through the first set of discs for this one, it is a gynormous book. And while it made me start writing my own narrative in my head, often while listening to it, it also made me profoundly depressed (Christy actually had to talk me down from listening to the other half, I really wanted to but was concerned I would become suicidal). I am sure to complete that novel (both the listening as well as the one I began writing in my head while listening) I would need to go live in a shack in the woods for several months with only a typewriter and frozen burrito's and listen to the book over and over and over again. And aside from becoming incredibly fat from burritos, I would either become the unibomber or Virginia Woolf.

The problem with me writing anything LARGE, like a novel, is that I get incredibly overwhelmed by two things. One, is the enormity of the project. I don't do well with long term relationships (outside of my love life that is). The idea of working on one creative project for months or years sounds ... well ... awful. I would get sick of it. Or get interested in something else too quickly. I am ADHD in one area of my life and that is my creativity. Before I have even gathered my materials for one project, I have thought of another, and abandon the first. Rarely do I finish them.

The other bit that overwhelms me is the opening sentence. It is such an incredibly powerful thing and sets the entire tone of the novel. And first sentences live forever and can sometimes outweigh an entire book. After all, who remembers much about Moby Dick besides, "Call me Ishmael" and that there is a whale as a main character? (Here is a list of the 100 greatest first sentences in novels OF ALL TIME ... I think that author is full of themselves and their opinions ... http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/02/04/news/doc43e3e6b004381080724526.txt)
The entire idea of the opening sentence makes me so nervous, that by the time I rewrite it a dozen times, I have forgotten the outline of my entire premise.

By the way, the last opening sentence I wrote for my imagined novel that I will never write is this: She sat down at her typewriter, and stared at the blank wall in front of her.

Bleh.

For more thoughts on opening sentences to novels and whether or not they matter, read this article that I haven't read:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/34068