Except I already know what happens when I let my writing slowly evolve. Nothing happens. Or things happen, but you'd have more adrenaline-packed excitement watching time lapse photography of a glacier melting into an arctic meadow than watching me write the book. I started the book back in 2004 and I'd written just 100 unorganized pages up until January 2010. Yet in eight weeks of structured time this spring, I wrote and rewrote 300. Apparently structure is a good thing for me. I'm just guessing here.
Also... I don't have time. I need to write the proposal and do the revisions NOW. Why the big hurry, you may ask? Homeschooling is the one word answer. It's likely I'll be homeschooling Cooper again in the fall for sixth grade. I've found from personal experience that homeschooling and writing my own book are not complementary activities. More like homeschooling is the eighteen wheeler bearing downhill at ninety miles an hour to my writing's skateboard in the middle of the crosswalk. The skateboard lays low and hopes it doesn't get squashed completely.
Now I'm hearing a diabolical clicking sound in the back of my mind. That definitely means trouble. What if... I make Cooper write a book too? We can have book-writing time every day. Heh, heh, heh. Sounds like a plan. An evil one, perhaps, at least from Cooper's point of view (he HATES writing), but an academically legitimate one, nonetheless. Of course, I'll be somewhat put off if the title of his book is "101 Ways To Torture Your Child Through Homeschooling: A Personal Memoir."
We'll see how all this turns out. I've got until July 31 to finish the proposal and revisions. Stay tuned for more plans, more patience, more proposals. Read on below for an excerpt from the first chapter of the book.
"I actively starved myself for about a year, when after many false attempts at throwing-up and over-the-counter diet pills, I found the perfect balance of will-power and deprivation at 15 years old. Despite the valley girl indoctrination of “oh gag me with a spoon!” no matter how much I hated myself, I never figured out how to push my finger or a spoon or any other implement far enough back into my throat to make myself puke. The enamel on my teeth is probably grateful to this day. I tried laxatives for a while, but the stories of girls who had ended up with intestinal failure at age eighteen freaked me out. A colostomy bag was all I needed to run my faltering self-esteem completely into the ground. I’m sure having to carry my poop around in a clear plastic bag would get me invited to all the popular parties. Not to mention that my self-image demanded unwavering control. Control over my bowels was a basic requirement. Willfully-cultivated self-deprivation appeared the only option for me, and I threw myself into it headlong, without coming up for air. I studied how to starve myself with the same dedication with which I approached my SATs. Repugnant: adjective meaning disgusting, revolting. Use in a sentence: If I imagine this plate of spaghetti is a bowl of worms writhing in blood, I will find it too repugnant to eat." From Finding Fullness
