coffee and some thoughts

Waking up early, before the baby, makes all the difference in the world. Just taking that one hour before he wakes up to gather myself. And now my brain is awake, on fire with ideas and creativity. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there are beautiful plump snowflakes falling outside, and Dylan is happily watching Sesame Street.

Dylan is in this phase now where he CRIES when he wakes up in the morning. From the very second he opens his eyes until he has his sippy cup of slightly warmed milk in his needy little hands. It’s really not a pleasant thing to wake up to. He’s such a happy kid the rest of the day, but just that trauma of the morning really sets the day off on the wrong track. But I can deal with it after I’ve had my coffee and a chance to think. I think women can deal with anything after coffee and a chance to think.

So this rush of creativity and ideas leads me to this: I think my short story collection might actually be a novel. Not even a novel-in-stories, but just a regular old novel. And a good thing too, since there is no market for short-stories, and every time I tell someone I write short stories, they look at me like I have a slimy alien growing out of my ear.

Of course, here you are absolutely obliged to roll your eyes at me. Everybody is writing a novel. Everybody has a first chapter. Really, they do. I know it. I’m fine with it.

And then there is this: how do you write a story about someone who travels somewhere you’ve never been, without actually traveling there yourself? There being Japan. Because I have a toddler and such adventures are not really in the budget these days.