Group Project

I hate group projects. Let's make that clear. I think I'm just too OCD to trust anyone else with part of my job... that and I take a while to make friends. Just recently, my cousin, Laura, cleared this up for me. Apparently I'm slow at making friends because I grew up with an awesome family. I'm so glad it's not because I'm a dork :) Anyhow, group projects were never really my thing. But sometimes group projects are good things. Apparently.



So, about two weeks back, I tried to quit reading other people's blogs forty times a day in an effort to take back some of those precious minutes of my day for writing. The last time I spent any real time writing was about two months before GQ graced us with his presence. Since his arrival... let's just say the number one use of my free time centers around my obsession with sleeping. I knew I needed an intervention... and blog use was sent to time-out.



Two weeks into that goal and I still haven't written a lick. In fact, I think I've actually written less since my newfound goal, since I don't write real blog posts anymore either. And, after all, those are a type of creative writing, if maybe a little lazy on my part. (Not on everyone's part... don't get me wrong... just on mine.)



So, today I thought about what to do. And I came to this:



About three years ago I attended a writing conferance where I met a beautiful writer: Martine Leavitt. Some of her first books published were written, she said, in the bathroom while her children bathed. That was where she found her time, and usually it only resulted in one page a day. But, by the end of the year, she had a book.



And truly, a year is not so very long in the writing world, my friends.



I have decided this is an achievable goal for me. One page a day. One measly, teensy, tinsy, LARGE page a day.



But let's be honest, in the world of motherhood there are not many people around to point a finger at you when you fail. (Except all those children who didn't get fed and don't have clothes to wear.) And who is to say that two days into my goal I won't give up and decide to take a nap? Honestly, that is the likely outcome.



Which is why we need intervention. Which is why we need a group project.



So, calling all groupies to my crazy experiment. If you too would like to write one page a day and have a book by next September, please let me know. And you don't even have to be a crazy stay-at-home mother like me.

Here are the rules:

- Each day you must write one new page of your book.

- This page cannot be a rehash of the previous day's page.

- Each page should be part of the same story, even if you choose to take some fantastical leap because you're bored stiff with the way things are going. (i.e. I once changed a story about a girl grieving her dying mother to a story about traveling in a magical, underground world because I was sick of being depressed.) The point being, that we are trying to write one complete book. Of course, I don't know of any book police involved in this project... so do what you want.

- At the end of each day you will e-mail your page to:

onepageaday@gmail.com

- This is to give you some sort of reason for not heeding the call of the nap... or, additionally, to keep you from watching late-night re-runs of "Perry Mason" on Channel 7 while you shirk your duty.

- If you're a legitimate groupie member I will give you the password to the e-mail account so you can check up on me too.

- If you don't want people reading your stuff - just don't attach it, or put "do not read" in the header.

- If you do - because you think you just wrote the best paragraph in the whole world, seriously - then you will automatically be entered in the weekly "One Page a Day" blog contest. This is where I post - once, weekly - one sentence or paragraph that knocks our socks off, so that the world at large can know we are extraordinarily talented. (One must have an ego to write... it's there to off-set the certainty that everything you've ever written smells faintly of burnt toast.)

All the above rules/crazy ideas are subject to change based on how nutso you all think I am.

So, if you'd like to join up - send an e-mail to onepageaday@gmail.com Then check out the blog I'm putting on my sidebar and comment on what you think the nutso rules should entail. I figure I'll start my first page on Monday - I need a few more days to procrastinate - and that we'll have the blog/crazy rules up and running by next Saturday.

And if you don't feel like joining me... don't worry.... Laura says the reason I don't have friends is because I do have cousins. I'll just hunt them down and make them join me... they're family, after all.

By the way, I had to write this post twice because of a malfunction... so if it doesn't make sense, I absolve myself of all responsibility!!