Chapter One

When things get hard anxieties take over. I feel like this is as much a fact of life as gravity (maybe even more so though probably not). But, when you return to the beginning the joy resurfaces, you feel the fresh air and remember, "oh yeah, I actually like what I'm doing." Towards the end of this past semester my posts started to get heavy and slightly stressed out. I've talked about the power of desire and how it drives me. But I've never focused on the darker side of desire. If you want something so badly it can seem like the world will end if you don't get what you want. Yes I want to be a published author one day. No I don't want to be paralyzed with fear every time I pick up a pen. My entire first year of college was one long battle with desire, pride, and fear. But no longer.
It's not that I'm never going to be a afraid of failure. That's natural. And I'm sure that at some point I'll be overwhelmed by how much I want to be a writer and lose track of the now. None of that should matter. Those are facts like anxiety is a fact. What's more important is that I LOVE to write and I'm happiest when I'm living in my head, listening to the words inside me (yes that was a bit sappy but it's cool). This summer I've been editing Guardians in the sense that I've been working on doubling it to get it to novel instead of novella length. And I realized that I love what I'm doing. There's nothing inside thinking what if this goes wrong, or what if this plot point doesn't work, or how is everything going to fit in with what I have? No voices except for the one I'm working to develop as a writer (oh hey, another bad joke). Just a girl doing what she cares about.
Muting the anxiety has actually paid off. I'm at a point where I have a fairly solid outline of what's to come and...drum roll please...introducing....CHAPTER ONE!!! That's right!!!! For a person unable to do more than divide her story into sections I have created a new beginning and found the courage to give it a name or in laymen's terms call it a chapter. Right now it's just called Chapter One but I have two or three names that I'm toying with. It's exciting to think that one day readers could open Guardians of Cornerstone and read this:

"Shana!" Eve Hearbweaver called. "Shana come to breakfast! It's an important day!"
Shana Herbweaver clambered down a rope ladder. It swung from the ceiling as she leapt nimbly onto the stone kitchen floor. "Sorry Mama. I was tinkering in the attic."

Well there it is. The first few sentences of an unpublished Chapter One.