I’m not making unreasonable demands of myself and expecting to be a completely different person in a day or two, I’m setting small reasonable goals which will (I hope) lead to the accomplishment of my larger goals.

One of those new smaller, more reasonable goals is simply to tell the story first and then refine it later. One of the reasons I have difficulty finishing a writing project is because somewhere during the process I start questioning the eloquence of the writing, the logic of the situations, or the general quality of it. No more.

Will it work? Not sure, but it’s certainly worth a try.

Sometimes I write like a woman possessed for hours on end. Words drench the pages like a frenzied summer storm. Other days a drought has settled.

Sometimes the block sneaks up on you. You start a brand new work with zeal for miles only to have that passion fizzle out a few pages in.

Then the block stays just long enough for your inner critic to set up house in the forefront of your mind and tell you all the reasons why you shouldn’t even bother writing in the first place. (Most of which seems to begin with, “You don’t know how to start that sentence.”)

But, in learning to fight this internal demon — The Block — I’ve discovered there is really only one thing you can do to disarm him: Write.

Write a postcard, write a fleeting thought, or write a grocery list. What you write doesn’t matter so much as the fact that you’re writing. Then, write a little more each day and keep it flowing.

And if that demon begins to rear his ugly head again, pick up your sword and cut him deeply with your words.

When I unraveled it, there was a brief message: Justine is allowed to bring in some make-up on Thursday. Miss Vince. I decided to flip through the remaining pages and found another one, slightly more ominous: I can’t take it anymore!

I decided to glue the scraps into my commonplace for future reference. But beyond the obvious questions the notes prompted, they got me thinking more deeply about the people behind them. Who wrote them? (Was it really Miss Vince or was it one of Justine’s friends?) Why? And why stick them in a library book?

They may seem arbitrary, but these scraps of papers are stories within themselves, begging for context. Now I’m inspired to purchase even more ex-library books, from all over the world if possible, to see what other Easters eggs they may contain…and what stories could come of them.

I know I’ve said it before, that I have six (or maybe eleven) unfinished manuscripts trapped in a cobwebbed Banker’s Box cluttering up my office closet.

I know that I’ve tormented my sister with countless stories of which she’ll (probably) never know the end.

But this time will be different. For really.

Come hell or high water, this novel will be written.

How can I be so certain? I’ve started a blog. I have told the world about this endeavor which makes me accountable (to the whole 1.2 people who will likely ever read this).

I’m not even sure why this is so hard a task because I’ve already done it before…and I was only 12 then. OK, the writing was crap and the plot was clichéd, but at least I finished.

So, yeah, hell or high water.

Anyway, when I woke up, it lingered as dreams of that type have a tendency to do and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might make for an interesting story element.

Since I’ve been awake for a long while, I can only pluck the most potent bits from my subconscious mind. But I’ll try to explain it as best I can.

I was in a school. It was an assembly of some sort, but it was taking place in the cafeteria instead of the auditorium. When we found out who the special guest was, I and two friends went to meet him. The other kids were excited, but they apparently didn’t know about the secret back way where I and two other friends went.

The man poked his head out of the car and one of the girls with me went a little mad with delight. I, at first, didn’t recognize him, then the girl said, “Yeah, that’s him! Emmy Lee!” (Or something of the sort. I am fairly certain, though, that Emmy was part of the name.)

We introduced ourselves to the man and got to accompany him for his grand entrance. When the doors to the cafeteria opened and he walked in, there was nothing but a bunch of stunned teenage faces, some were even stretching their necks to look behind him, and some still looked confused.

Apparently they had been waiting for Lee Emmy, not Emmy Lee. But we (the three girls who went to meet him) all feigned outrage because he was a pioneer of some-super-geeky-thing-that-I-can’t-recall-right-now.

Fast forward, I became good friends with this Emmy Lee person, but it all went to hell when some strange event happened. (I can’t remember that event either, but I know it was a betrayal of my trust.) Shortly after the event, I realized something of mine was missing. He’d taken it. (Again, I don’t remember what was taken, but I believe it was a shoe.)

Fast forward again, the whole Emmy Lee situation is behind me and I’m going about my business, still a little sore from prior events, but not letting it get the best of me. Then, betrayal strikes again. One of the girls I thought was a good friend ends up ambushing me (in true Hollywood Blockbuster style) and after I defeat her, I’m going through my room only to realize that my phone is missing. At first I thought she took the entire Internet modem, phone base, and answering machine, but it was just a single handset.

After some sleuthing I came to realize that there was another, unseen party involved. Someone was blackmailing these people close to me so they’d steal certain objects from me because…get this…they allowed this person to see certain aspects of my life psychically. For instance, the shoe let the person see wherever I was and the phone let the person hear whatever I was saying.

I only found out because this person was using another individual to get more of my personal belongings and I forced them to tell me what the deal was. Basically, I was being astrally stalked.

Freaky, but kinda cool, right?

Maybe I’ll actually write a short story called The Astral Stalker.