Melinda Morley

Dear Blog,

 I feel guilt. I feel like I’ve been the bad friend who says she’ll call and “we’ll go to lunch sometime” and then is never heard from again until you run into them. At Target or something. Awkward. Because you know that they said they would call and didn’t. (Does that mean you’re really not friends?) And you try to have small talk, but there is nothing to say.

How are you?

Fine.

How are you?

We’re fine.

Oh, that’s good.

And then you pretend that your phone is vibrating and you’ve got to answer that call and let’s go to lunch sometime, bye bye.

But Blog, please know this is not how it is between us. Because, even if I get distracted with kids and homework and writing and kids and dinner and kids, well, I’m still your friend. Awkwardness aside. I’m here. Let’s chat.

Love,

Mel

Now that we’ve made amends, here is a random blog post.

Me:

So, it’s like when you have so much to say and then when you have the chance to say it, your mind goes blank. Like when you plan on bearing your testimony and you have all these eloquent words swimming through your brain and you know this will probably be the best and most sincere testimony you have ever given in your life and then when the moment comes and you are standing at the pulpit…

Me:

(nothing)

Somehow it all disappears. And you stammer and sound trite and then give the basics and sit down.

That’s how I feel. All day, all week, all month, wonderful, eloquent little tidbits have been wafting through my brain and now:

Me:

(still nothing.)

So, today I talked to my trusty writer friend. Seriously, I need her. And we talked about many wonderful writerly things. And when we were done, I was renewed and I sat and wrote. And I talked to my characters and wrote some more.

And then I wrote a scene that made me cry. It could just be PMS, but I really started to cry over what was happening in my own piece of fiction. And it wasn’t because the writing was bad. I was crying over my characters because I felt so bad for them. And they were making mistakes. Big mistakes. Crying over my fiction has never happened to me before. My characters are becoming so real to me that I’m emotional over them. I hadn’t expected this.

I’ve cried over my personal essays. But they are true stories. Not fabrications.

Guess what…

I really want my characters to be real. Really bad I do. I want to talk to them and hang out with them. And I am totally bummed that they are figments of my imagination.

But what if they were real?

What if we are really characters in someone else’s book?

(Yes, I am really insane now.)

Never mind.

So, lunch anyone?