So, where was I?

Ah, yes, I was saying that I'm reading John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel, written while he was writing my favorite book, East of Eden. I will have to reread that book once I'm done, keeping his comments while he was writing it at least somewhat in mind. I don't know if it's just that I missed things while reading it the first time or if it got changed a lot between the first draft and the published version (it was, but maybe not enough to make me miss so much). But I'm realizing how deliberate he was in writing it, how he made choices very, very consciously about how the book was to be framed and written, what the plot was going to be, who the characters were to be...what they were to represent...

I've never written that consciously. Almost everything I've ever written, including this post now, just spills out willy-nilly, so the form is ... well, formless. Or if there's a form, it's purely accidental. Maybe I should say "a form that works", because each of these posts has a form, of sorts. I guess.

Anyway, here I am, getting all meta again. But this is as it should be, if I'm to start writing again. I have been thinking about my novel again, it's the Steinbeck that's moving me in that direction. (I'm also reading two other books these days and they're not similarly inspiring me. But that's okay, they're fun.) (Did I mention somewhere what they are? I won't keep you guessing or trying to look somewhere else--it's Clark Clifford's memoirs and Time and Again, my 4th or 5th reading of that one.)

I don't know why I didn't realize until now that one of the reasons I haven't been writing for the last decade or so is fear. What's making me realize it now is that I've only invited one other person to read this blog so far (hi!) and can't decide who the second one should be. And it crossed my mind to mention it at my birthday dinner party next week--and that just made my stomach tie up in a nice, little knot with a bow in it. I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and take the plunge--if you'll forgive the mixed metaphors.

I'm running out of steam here, it's been another long day. I didn't get outside of the building at all and it was a gorgeous spring day--but my allergies! Oh, man, this is the worst it's been and I know it's worse for others, as my symptoms--the sneezing and sniffling and itchy nose (not eyes, they're fine, go figure)--are really no worse than a medium cold, but I so rarely get that symptom that I have to assume others are truly miserable. And that's what I've been hearing. Of course, I do have extra fatigue and some lightheadedness tonight and those are my usual allergy symptoms.

I have to do the laundry tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to that. But having clean undies, etc., that I'm looking forward to.

More tomorrow. Or the next day.