Truths: Agony

I just hit the send button on an email… an email that has the potential to change my life – good or bad… I do not know.

I signed up for a week long writing retreat at UW Madison in June. Thinking that it is was a “retreat” and an incredible opportunity to work on my book about my experience since rescuing Thorp at a puppy mill auction.

A retreat, right? Doesn’t a retreat sound tranquil, peaceful- a quiet refuge?

To my horrid surprise – there will be nothing tranquil about this… It is work. I received our first homework assignment last week and it was anything but easy. In fact, it was nauseating.

At first there was confusion, which made me panic. The original course I signed up for was filled –go figure – so based on recommendations, I chose a fiction course on finishing up your novel. Even though my book is non-fiction – it is considered creative non-fiction so the thought was that it would all work out fine.

Until, I made the mistake of sending in my plot summary and leaving out all of the creative parts – leaving the instructor pondering why I was in her class at all.

Perhaps, I have written too many newspaper articles where I had to tell a two page story in 2 columns…my plot summary left out all of my emotion and there wasn’t anything creative about it.

I was crushed…and panicked and unable to sleep.

I had been dreaming about this course – this retreat – and now, I was left wondering if I was unwanted…unworthy...

I tossed and turned and decided that I could use all the help I could get – that I just had to suck it up and re-write my plot summary. My book IS good - damn it and I had to believe in myself or I was never going to get it past the print button on my own computer.

I have spent the last 48 hours revising a 1 ½ page plot summary. 48 hours contemplating a comma, a word a paragraph and still, my stomach is knots.

Writing a book within your own 4 walls is safe – having a few friends critique it – is safe – printing it at a box store – is safe…BUT, sharing it with other novel writers…is NOT safe. Everything I love about my book – everything that makes it mine – is open…and because it is a true story – reflecting ME – I become open and no longer safe.

And, I am scared to death!

Hitting that send button meant that I was good with what I wrote – that I was ready for someone else to critique it...but I am not.

As I told my husband how I was feeling – he brought up the contestants on American Idol and how it must feel to have Simon critique them in front of millions of people…how any artist is always open to the harshest of words because everything they do is subjective.

He told me that he could never do that – and that he knows that I can. (that is why I love him).

But, can I… I feel so exposed, so vulnerable. And yet, if I don’t allow myself this moment – how can I ever believe in my book – how can I ever know that it is good enough for other people to buy?

It feels like jumping off a cliff and just hoping someone will catch you before you hit bottom. – Right now, I am just hoping that I bounce!

Retreat, my ass... seems more like some sort of boot camp to me… pure agony.

I gotta go – I think I am going to puke!