I am stuck. I have a sort of writer’s block for an unscripted story that wanders around inside my head, never having been mapped out properly and never fleshed out completely. It has always been there haunting, tormenting, morphing, an idle flight of the imagination. I have always known that I should write about it but have never been able to pin down a single plotline.

I began a story at Sequoia Junior High with my friend Sandra Irene Martinez (whom I miss terribly.) We were both writing the same story but from different angles; our inspiration stemmed in part from Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time while the rest was a jumble of Robotech and other far-fetched things.

I incorporated certain elements from this “wishful story” into a full-length novel when I was in my late teens/early twenties. The person I was collaborating with turned out to be an alcoholic twit – a genius, but a twit nevertheless. I scrapped it for US publication.

The work has been laid to rest (or so I thought), a bundle of files transferred from typewriter to WordStar, to WordPerfect, to MS Word. It twists and stretches, bereft of any bones. I have over thirty-two “design” files that contain mockups of creature development (there is an entire world and an entirely new civilized if “alien” species replete with social, political and religious nuances.)

There are days that I ask myself a simple question: WTF?

I have no idea why I am drawn to this endeavor. It is as if this book was born of my childhood imagination. I had already had a basic idea of the evolutionary process of these “creatures” by the time I was ten. My junior high experience was the motivation to put things down on paper; tell the story. My early adult years were the refinement. It’s all tucked away in my spongy grey matter and I, in complete frustration, can not figure out where I want to go with it. I have an entire world to play with and to manipulate, and a species to rule. I am a god of sorts and yet I sit at my monitor and I hear the monotone emergency broadcast signal played out, mocking me: “This is a test of your writer’s network. You have no idea how to proceed. Had you been an actual writer, the book that are trying to create would have been done ten years ago. This concludes this test of your writer’s network.”

I am also in the midst of collaborating (read Editing, capital E) with my Mum on her book. I won’t go into details on it except to say that I made several suggestions months back (which she balked at) and now, in a bit of her own inspiration, she calls to say that the gentleman that she spoke with had (the same damned) wonderful suggestions (that I had previously.) I love my parental unit, truly, however my hair did not begin to twinkle into silver tones until I started this project.

Did I mention that I also have another project: turning a three act play into a novel (again, her work. It is extraordinarily potent and I believe that it would impact readers in a very thought-provoking way.)

I have all this. Lovely to-do list, isn’t it? What am I doing to remedy any of it? I’m Blitching (blog bitching) instead of focusing on any of these projects.