Tilt: A (Someday) Novel

Every November since I found out about it, I have aspired to participate in National Novel Writing Month. That makes six years of lofty goals that have flickered out into half-written "fiction" novels about whatever was going on with me that year—weight loss, adjusting to marriage, finding yourself while being a new mother. This year, I even chucked the idea of writing fiction and told myself that I was allowed to write a tiny memoir. No results.

But I had these writing dreams even before I knew about NaNoWriMo. While digging around my Love Notes folder, I found a few over-sized note cards tucked into the back flap. After checking them out, I realized that they were outlines for a novel I started writing in my freshman year of college. I had named it "Tilt: A Novel."

My whole world changed when I moved to college; my first relationship was over, I was living in a new place which I had never done before (thanks, living in the same place for my whole life!), and I was flailing around frantically academically-speaking. I thought that setting all of that in a fictional world would make it hurt less.

Each character was an amalgamation of myself and my friends; you can see in my character notes that some people are described as "Cole-esque" or "Cora-esque." I find the people in my life to be extremely inspiring, artistically, so it's no wonder that I would incorporate them in my writing. At the time, I also found everyone I knew to be incredibly complex and twisted, even if they weren't. Thus is the life of an 18-year-old.

Looking over these notes might have made me cringe at my former self, but I actually was invigorated. I think I may chase after this dream once again, even though it's mid-November and I would have no chance of finishing it in time to claim the NaNoWriMo prize.

And on a seemingly-unrelated note, I found this card with the others and think the musings are extremely cryptic. Apparently it's a list about myself.

My friend Olivia introduced a love of cheeseburgers into my life, so the first bullet point is a gimme. The others are mysterious though: what kind of art did I want to do, who was this boy, and to whom was the "starting over and over" open letter?

The final point makes the most sense, though. I am positive that wherever I wrote this card, it smelled like fart. End of discussion.

Do you consider yourself a writer?

 Is there another artistic endeavor that you've always dreamed of doing, but haven't?