The Incidental Author

Books have always been in my life and always will be. Reading takes me to places in my imagination I may never have gone without incentive. It teaches me things I don’t think I could ever learn in school. It introduces me to people I’ll never meet, but want to know everything about.

Besides the intense anger I felt when told my cancer had come back, was a fear. Not just of death, but that I would never be able to read every book in my library. It was devastating to come to terms with the fact that I probably could, if I dedicated myself to the effort. And it would be an effort.

That thought didn’t last long though. The word “effort” should never be used in the same sentence as reading. At least not when reading for pleasure. (I’ve been to college. I’ve tried to read Chaucer. Making a generalization about effort and reading then would be wrong.)

So I decided to cull my stacks. I sat down and forced myself to be honest about which books I truly want to read and which ones I could wait to read, or would not regret removing them, possibly permanently.

It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I love books. I love having a library.

I am finding it hard to remove rather than add to my shelves. Being realistic sucks. Where is that genie to grant me that wish of not being able to die until I read all the books in my library?

My library is an inspiration as well as an escape mechanism. It also has helped me write, or at least write better. In reading, I learn more about structure, characterizations, plot, etc. I see what is done well and what fails.

I miss writing. I have so many ideas, but working them into stories, even a novel is a daunting task. I do love reading essays and writing them. So I will do that, and keep this journal going hoping it will lead to bigger and better things. Also, I will play more with short fiction and flash fiction.

Baby steps. That’s what I need.

I want to write. I want to read. I want to live.

And I will continue to do all of these until I can’t do them anymore.

And I will continue to cull my stacks. Lightening the load I leave behind. But I’m going to do it slowly, and at times I will be replenishing with books I want to leave behind. My son is developing his own love of books, and if I leave behind any kind of legacy, I can’t think of a better one than a library.

Look at me. Already talking about what I’ll leave behind. To hell with that. It’s defeatist and I haven’t given up, not by a long shot.

So forgive me if at times, my rambling fails to acknowledge the life I have, and focuses too much on the one I feel like I’m losing. Again, that damn realism seeping in. I need a reality-proof slicker. Preferably a bright and annoyingly cheery one.

Off to check Overstock.com!

This blog was initially, and still is a repository for my writing. But it’s been dormant because of my inability to spur my muse into action.

To muddy the waters even more, I just found out my breast cancer has returned and possibly spread.

Talk about the wake-up calls of all wake-up calls.

Not that I want to completely change what this space is all about, I still plan to write and in fact have some great ideas I plan to develop. But I need to vent. I need to express things I have a hard time voicing to others, and at times, to myself.

So I plan to write about my journey with cancer. Hopefully, it will not be the final one. Granted, it will kill me. I know this.

Eventually. But not now. Not this year. There is hope I can get a few more out before exhausting all my options.

I knew ten years ago when I was originally diagnosed, my life span was never going to be as long as I thought. I felt the cancer might come back, but  when I was an age where I had more behind me than in front of me, so I would be more accepting of my fate.

But not now. Not when I still feel I have so much ahead of me that it pisses me off to think it’d have the gall to reappear. Shaking me to the core again, forcing me to face the reality of mortality. This finite existence that is the truth for all of us.

I’d like to be writing again, and perhaps this journaling will help. Getting my muse back will be a welcome distraction too.

I’m hopeful.

I have to be.