The stuff never-written books are made of.

I have been hearing it, again.I have been hearing the voice again compelling me to write. Not just in my blog or on twitter (which I am finding way more fun than I thought it would be) but continuing to work on a book that  I have been working on, on and off for about four years.I thought it was just because I was being lazy, procrastinating. Hey it isn't like I haven't been guilty of it before.

Jill, ever the therapist, has asked me if I was afraid of success or failure....definitely failure. What if I write a whole book and no one is interested? What is they think it is stupid? What if no one will publish it?

Then one of my friends sent me an email about her recent trip to India. She had a quotation from bell hooks. I should probably look it up but that whole laziness thing. It was basically about how if we are going to honestly write about our life, our situation, then we must face the darkest parts of our selves. We must own the things that we thought and said that were wrong. Admit that we did them. Only then can we move past it all.

It is why we need mommy blogs, well why people read them anyway. I don't think it is an accident that the woman the NY times crowned Queen of the Mommy Bloggers is the same woman who checked herself into a psych ward because she realized her PPD was going to kill her. She wrote through it. People identified. It isn't that being a mom isn't life changing and incredible and completely amazing. But sometimes your kid strips off her diaper on the way all the way through the house and you have to wash her new dress and put on a clean dress. Then you have to go through the house and find all the turds she dropped on her way to find you while she screams her head off when we you try to keep her contained as you pick up her poop and try not to vomit. Those stories need to be shared so that when it happens to someone else, she can know she isn't alone. And she will laugh about it later.

I want to write that book for first year teachers. The book I wish I had my first year. The one that admits that every thing you said you would never do in teacher school......you will do those things. Punish with homework, lose your temper, give up one day, give up on a kid even though you do truly believe that every student can and has the right to learn. I said things to students that I am not proud of. I had whole days that were unequivocal failures. My victories were smaller most days than I had ever dreamed. But I pushed through it, and after four years I am starting to become the teacher I was so sure I was when all I did all day was talk educational theory.

Now all I have to do is take these next two weeks and actually write that business. No problem.........if I do it. Which I haven't even before I had kids......Wish me luck.