I’m traveling for work today. Just a quick trip, a quick meeting, but I’m in the midwest. Thinking back on other trips like this, I’m reminded of a passage from Fight Club –

You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, Mountain, Central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. You wake up at Air Harbor International. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?

I don’t mean to say that all cities are the same, but when you fly into airports and drive to nearby hotels, there is a certain sameness to it all. To the airport gates and moving walkways and baggage claim areas. To the highways and overpasses and industrial sites and strip malls leading out of them. To the hotels. Even as we were driving into the city, it had a certain sameness to it. The skyline was different, the buildings in different shapes and configurations, but it still felt the same. Cincinnati, Little Rock, Baltimore, Columbus, and more all blending together. And I know there’s more to these places than what I’m seeing, these little glimpses, little slices, but for this small amount of time, it lacks any sense of being unique.

I’m not fond of airports, and these days travel seems even more onerous than it always did, but one of the nice side effects is that it forces you to slow down. There’s the trip to the airport. The lines through security. The waiting at the gate. Waiting on the plane. Flying. Waiting again. Then the trip off and to your destination. And while I listen to things when I can, and read when I can, there’s a lot of time. Time leads to thinking. Thinking leads to ideas.

This trip I came up with at least three different story ideas I want to write. One for a YA novel (that I now really want to write), one for a short story, and another for a short story idea I was trying to develop. As much as I hate travel sometimes, that almost makes it worthwhile.

In the meantime, I’m using my time in the hotel to get some more words down while I’m out of the house. Might as well make the best of it, right?

So as you know if you read this blog at all regularly, I’m working on a middle grade novel. A few entries back I made it my goal for February to have my (hopefully) final edits done to the novel by the end of the month. N had recently given me a last round of comments on the manuscript and I just needed to figure out how best to implement them.

Last night, while outside, looking at the stars, things suddenly clicked. I was thinking, rather lazily, about the novel, and suddenly pieces started to fall into place. Ways I could change the beginning to trim wooden and useless characters, ways to beef up characterization, ways to make the plot make more sense. It became like the proverbial snowball rolling downhill. As I thought of new changes, others arose from them. And suddenly I was excited to dive back into the novel and revise it because I was making it better.

I paid for my excitement with a lack of sleep, but I managed to barrel through the first few chapters, almost completely rewriting one of them. And I’m excited to get back to it. To continue making the changes and bring everything in line with the vision I have of its altered shape.

Only…there’s a bit of doubt that’s crept in. Which I suppose, for me, is natural. Last night it seemed like this diamond-edged ideal of a novel, but today I wonder if it really is better. Are the boring parts still just boring in a different way? It’s hard to tell. There still exists this desire for validation. I wanted to call up a handful of people and describe my changes and see if they sounded good to everyone.

In the end, though, I have to do what makes sense for me. There may be more fine tuning to come, but hopefully it will be just that and not major rewrites. And now that I’m on a roll, I’m hesitant to lose the momentum. So I’ll continue and hope that what emerges is stronger and more effective.

Incidentally, while it’s nothing new, I’m always amazed at how the subconscious works. I often get feedback on stories and sit, frustrated, unable to figure out how to make changes. And in those moments you forget that often the brain needs time to digest things, to work out problems behind the scenes. Then, often for me while being outdoors and walking or just not thinking very much about anything, inspiration will hit, and things will line up in a seemingly magical way. It’s just all the work is being done by the subconscious. Still, magical.

Is it similar for you?

So my birthday has come and gone (and I swear I will stop mentioning it) and yet I was not able to produce a new story to send to people to make up for my missed holiday story. I had been planning on it, but then ended up spending my time and energy on revising an old story I got all interested in again. So…sorry.

However, last night I woke up from a strange dream that inspired a story that I had to start. It was one of those situations where as I sat there, feeling the dream fading away, I started writing it in my head. Assuming it gets past that first initial stage, I might end up dashing through it. It feels like one of those stories that will finish quickly, so, assuming it does, I may just send that out, a little late, and call it my birthday story.

I hope, at least.

But my friends, both online and local, have been very good to me lately and I would like to give something back. So let’s see what I can do.

Yesterday was my birthday. And it was a good one.

I know a lot of people who don’t care for birthdays, but I do. My mum used to always make a big deal out of them growing up and I think that that rubbed off on me. Not so much for gifts or for the fuss, but just for the celebration and doing things with people you care about.

The last few years of birthdays are linked inexorably with my mother. Like one several years back where she was coughing and having trouble breathing, a sure sign that something was wrong with her lungs. Then the following year which is one of the last times I remember her being her old self with the family. And, of course, last year, which seemed so soon after she’d died and which lay in the shadow of that.

It’s not that I didn’t think of her this year, but it was of happier times, about how special she made those days, and this birthday was special as well due to the efforts of N and my friends and I am so grateful for that and for everything I have and, though I hate saying this as a writer, it’s difficult for me to express in words how much that means to me.

Now it’s over and there’s another year to come, but I start it with a feeling of being loved and cared for and appreciated and that’s a powerful thing.

Let’s see where this next year takes us.

…to the shortest month of the year, I’ll add that I’d like to have edits done on my Middle Grade book by the end of the month. I’m giving myself this weekend (hey, it’s my birthday on Sunday) to not worry about it, then I’m going to focus on that primarily for the rest of the month. I want to make it better then get it out of my hair for the time being. Sometimes writing seems to be about which of the persistent, pestering voices you can silence.

Wish me luck.