Overwhelmed?

Someone the other day told me they would be "overwhelmed" to write a book. I thought about it. I'm not. Writing the book isn't overwhelming, it's busting to get out of me. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by:
- the thought of not getting it published. It's not a diary, it's a book, I want people to read it, I need people to read it..........I want them to read it.....even if they hate it and disagree
- the boldness of the choice to write it and what it has meant for my life and lifestyle. Most of the time it shocks me how happy I am to be writing this book. Other times it scares me. In the strictest sense of the word I am doing it alone. I feel the quiet support of my family (this matters to me), the genuine support of my friends and, some days, the enthusiasm and excitement of strangers whom I happen to tell. But only I write the book, it comes from me.
- what happens next? Life after the book. This taps at the back of my mind. I have nine draft chapters; more than most would expect. I can smell it if not yet see the finish line and there is nothing but haze on the horizon. I can committ to tomorrow, next week, maybe next month....I don't know. If I am asked for more I will simply say no - at least I have gained the courage to just say "I don't know where I will be".
A year and more of uncertainty was preceded by three and a half years of certainty........although now I recognise that time was no less certain than what I am doing now - it was just framed differently, packaged in a way that had me not see the uncertainty of it and that I created and generated alot of the uncertainty, as I do today. Staying still, it scares me......much much more than I really understood. What I am doing now is more honest, more real, no pretense and no facade. I toy with future possibilities; it's a privillege and a pain. The choices are all mine.
I am less overwhelmed and occassionally disturbed as I watch my bank balance go down, and feel my ego stay static - writing a book that is to be published is about deferred gratification - I'm good at that. Risk and reward - no easy life for me.
I wander what happens tomorrow?

Biography vs history

As much as I am enjoying telling my story the book isn't all about me. As I've progressed in my writing and thinking I've focused on the other side of the story. Well really it is the very foundation of the story and that is the history of the conflict in Bosnia. Politically I've taken a stand that some things must be told in the book to give everyone a broader perspective and remind people about some of the things that occured. I traverse ethnic cleansing, rape as a war crime.......how the UNs idea of "Safe Areas" failed to save 8000 Bosnians in Srebrenica. It's not preachy nor are these passages long. Some are told in the context of things I saw post the events themselves, others based on things I heard and still others based on things that emerged post the war. They are designed as simple statements of fact and, I think, to focus solely on my narrow view of the world would be overly self indulgent and downright dispectful. I've learnt so much more about the conflict through writing the book than I actually knew at the time. As I've researched some of the stories behind the stories I heard while there I've gained a richer insight and an even sader perspective on it all. It's strangely rewarding though to wade through some of the complexities and be invited to boil them down, while determined to keep the readers attention.

Bridging

I'm emmersed in the bridging chapters at the moment. They are the ones that have me complete pre.deployment training, travel to Croatia and then into central Bosnia. They are a challenge because they set the scene for my experiences in Bosnia. At best they will have people appreciate or understand how I was while there - the choices I made, good and bad. They also begin the process of establishing how I managed my emotional self. I didn't mean it to be that way but my voice in the book reinforces a theme. I won't share what I think it is, readers can and will decide in the end. But there is a thread, sometimes it is thick and very tangible, other times it is fine and delicate.........but it's there.

At a basic level these chapters provide some of the "facts" of the deployment, where we were, what we were to do, the brief history of the conflict itself. It's actually quite complex to write these things simply. But it's important. There are some historical facts that, I believe, should inform any discussion of the Bosnian war; I will explain rape as a war crime and ethnic cleansing as an action..........without losing the reader..........it's ambitious, I want and need to do it well. I am glad to have the intellect, commitment and political drivers of my ghost editor - she won't let me tell half a story nor tell any of it badly.

A fools errand

As a subtext to writing the book I have been trying to "discover" if I am a writer. In much the same way I don't think carrying a rifle and wearing a uniform makes a soldier I don't think writing one book makes you a writer - although I will happily claim the title of "published author" if it is offered. That aside I've been reading the blogs of "writers". Those who claim the title of writer without hesitation. I found one - no I'm not sending you there, the content may not be to everyone's taste - who says that when she is being a writer the words pour out of her, in a torrent, without hesitation. On the flip side she has days where she wanders around the house idylly picking up things, reading randomly, unable to settle to the task. These things are true for me. Her personal view was that if writing is an agony and always a struggle then you should give it up...........I'm not so sure that is fair but I think I understood her point.
I've never read Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" but have shamelessly referenced the title in other places. I am reading it now, or at the very least I have started reading it. I am interested, her premise seems to be (and it is an historical text) that woman can only write if they have a personal space to do it, of course the counter (not mine but offered in the text) is that this would mean only woman of independent means can write as the "poor" or working class woman, who had to work, were unable to stop and have a room of their own.
Combined perhaps that is why, in modern day times, we still have so few service woman's stories - there is no time to stop and tell the story, having the room is irrelevant if you have no time to use it..........

The day of reckoning

I've been given the nod........it's time to throw the dice and discover if anyone will publish this book. Draft chapters to be sent by the end of the week, several more to be withheld. It's a winner or a loser, to be published or not. More may be required to convince. I'm ready - complete defeat, I hope not............for the first time NZAlien and "This must be hard for you ma'am" find a meeting ground. Let's hope or believe both will briefly merge. I seldom accept defeat in the first round....unless I see it as something not worth fighting for. Games on.

Writing about War is intense

I have now well and truly landed in the war. As I am writing I am researching more and more about the conflict itself. There was so much I didn't know about the war and so much I want to say about it in the book. Some moments of history are well know (Mostar) and some are not. Writing about it expands my mind and senses hugely. It is as if I can see it all again (and I haven't yet got any of my photos from NZ). It brings me to life in a strangely disturbing way. Stories I've never told are pouring out of me. I was reading a writers blog the other day - she said you should only be a writer if, when the moment is right, you sit at your computer and the story literally flies out of you..........that is what happens for me......other times, as she said, you wander around the house, lifting things up, reading random things, surf the net and the like........waiting for the story to arrive. She is a fiction writer but the principles seem the same. Or maybe it is just that this is the story I am supposed to tell so it is pouring out of me.
On days like today, when I stop writing, I have to bring myself back to "this world", shake the images of the past and the wave of different feelings, thoughts and emotions it brings to me. It is the privillege I have - my life is my own, no demands of a daily job (although some small fears about the future), friends far from me so few immediate interactions (although new ones emerging slowly changing the flow of my daily life) and the quiet easy peace of my home that is, in the end, the perfect "Room of one's own".