The other night I was talking with my husband and I mentioned that sometimes it felt like I’m the only person on WordPress who hasn’t published a book, or is trying to publish a book, or is trying to sell their book, or is trying to work on a book.
He looked up from what he was doing and said, “You could write a book, you could do a self-published ebook on Amazon.”
“And what if your mother found out?”
“You have a point.”
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, inconsistently keeping personal journals, writing stories, and documenting the mundane. I haven’t written much in a journal since I got married (although I have maintained a blog of our assorted adventures with some regularity). After I had Kid1, the sleep-deprived cycle I fell into was not conducive to writing in a journal, I was having thoughts I did not feel comfortable putting on paper.
My story writing has also fallen by the wayside. I used to write simply impossible futuristic stories about clones and assassins, bizarre fantasy stories about the dragons and unicorns war with the dwarfs, and fatalistic the messiah-is-coming-esque tales of a few “chosen” ones on a boat that never really got anywhere. I don’t think fiction is the right genre for me.
In college any writing other than writing-for-necessity was generally put aside, there were a few exceptions, but by and large I stuck firmly in the realm of academic drudgery. After I got engaged, we started a blog for our friends and family to introduce ourselves (we’re rather spread out), and to keep them updated with goings on, and our new adventures in married life, this has since spread to include what the kids are up to.
Most of my writing these days is on twitter, or on this blog. It never really occurred to me to write a book about my experiences and adventures leaving Christian Science. I’m not sure I want to.
Publishing a book makes all this real. It means putting my name on it, telling my mother and mother-in-law. It means that Principia will find out. It means the people I grew up with will find out. It means all the Church Ladies will find out.
I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
A blog? So what, there are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, so one of them happens to sound a little like my experiences, surely it is a coincidence. A blog could just disappear into the vastness of the internet, perhaps they got the URL wrong.
A book is still a little too solid. I don’t want to publicly attach my name with CS and the associated atrocities. CS books tend to take one of two turns: 1) the super-researched picking apart of Ms. Eddy/the movement/prayer for healing/death of children route, or the 2) read about my woe-is-me horror-filled childhood. There are plenty of #1, and #2 wasn’t my childhood.
Perhaps I can write a fictitious memoir.
kind-ism 
You should totally go for it. Worst case scenario – you could always use a pen name.
I already do.
I think you should go for it 🙂 Hopefully you will.
Kindism, I would love to read a book about The Church of the Brunch, written by you. You are more than what you’re not. There’s more to you than the fact that you no longer consider yourself a Christian Scientist. You are funny, and wise, and smart. You make me laugh. You make me smile. you make me think. I would really enjoy reading a collection of your stories about life – about being a mom, wife, human being.
Thanks Karen. I like the title “The Church of the Brunch” and somewhere I think I even have the perfect photo for cover-art from my pre-children days when we actually used our extravagant stemware for lavish mid-day brunches. I think we last used them two New Years Eves ago for sparking cider at around 10pm…
PERFECT cover!!! The Church of the Brunch could be about the wise and wonderful things you and your fellow Brunchians talk about during the course of your “meetings” – you could write about fellowship, kindness, community, the simple things that bring you joy, and the nonsense that makes you laugh. That’s a book I look forward to reading! 🙂