When I moved home from San Diego in 1998 I was 27. I worked with this woman who was 30 and who I thought was TOTALLY cool. She had a bookclub so I wanted to have a bookclub. Truthfully I wanted to be in HER bookclub but it was exclusively for her college friends so I decided to start my own.
I called 6 of my friends and invited them to join - and I invited each of them to invite a friend or two and on the first night there were a dozen women in my livingroom - half of whom I'd never met before.
Some of them were not stellar - like the woman who confessed that she had accidentally killed her own cat with rat poison - and some of them were BEYOND stellar - like my friend Serena.
My, at the time, NEW friend, Serena who is my NOW 14 year OLD friend Serena.
The thing I love about her is that she doesn't take anything I say personally. Like if I say, "I don't know if I could be a stay at home mom." She doesn't think, "Wow, Kit thinks I'm lame for staying home." Because I totally don't. I think she's brave and awesome and lucky.
Which means it's REALLY easy to talk to her because I don't have to worry that what I'm going to say is going to offend her. Because that happens sometimes.
So one day we were talking about writing a novel - which she totally does and I totally think I could do but can't commit to and she said to me that she had recently seen an author speak and someone in the audience had asked, "Don't you think that everyone has a story in them?" and the author had said, "No. I don't."
And I thought that was interesting because I think that I do - and I don't think the fact that I haven't been able to commit to putting it down on paper means that the story isn't there.
Except that it MAY AS WELL.
Right?
And so, FUCK ME, I've decided to put it down.
This year I am going to participate in National Novel Writing Month - NANOWRIMO - the month of November - where you commit to writing a novel - 50 thousand words - by the end of the month.
Since I have zero free time, I'm not sure where this is effort is going to fit in but I think that if I don't do it, I need to shut up about doing it. And we all know that shutting up is not my strong suit.
So bear with me. If my posting is a bit thin, or it totally sucks you'll know I'm writing the great American novel. And if I start posting 2 or 3 times a day, you'll know I'm totally procrastinating!
What about you? Do YOU have a story in you?
The headlights of her car played off the center lines, and she counted them as they fell away into the darkness behind her.
She was thinking that it was a nice change of pace to have the road to herself.
The centerline strobed by, the tires hummed soothingly against the pavement, and her eyes fluttered involuntarily closed before the loud 'thump' startled her immediately back to pulse pumping awareness.
She wearily rubbed her temples and glanced at the passenger seat, where the day's newspaper sat open to that ridiculous article.
Why did they have to write such horrible things about her? She immediately felt stupid for reading the article in the first place.
Another thump....WTF!?
"Perfect!" she mumbled to herself. This is exactly what I needed to make this day a complete disaster. She slowly edged the 2010 BMW to the shoulder of the deserted road.
Undoing her seatbelt, she thought about how horribly this entire week had gone.
"Shit"! ...no bars on the cell phone.
"Julie, Julie...Julie" She thought to herself as she laid her head back against the seat rest. She closed her eyes and thought about what she should do next...
Light filtered through the trees lining the road. "Well at least I'm not the only car on the road." she thought. Immediately her mind flashed to countless news tips and her mother's own words, "Stay in your car!"
The light was moving closer. A flashlight? I don't think there are any houses in this area so who is it?
The light stopped moving and then suddenly turned off.
A chill caught her as she slid down in her seat. "It couldn't be him..." she thought. "No, I was way too careful" she whispered to herself as she prayed it was the fear playing mind games with her.
Julie trembled as the familiar sound of his footsteps came closer. There was no escaping now. She knew it was morally wrong, but was fate bringing them together again?
Her mind flashed back to the events of their last encounter, and she immediately reached for her purse. She knew she needed to reach her gun before he reached her car!!
Where is my purse? She searched feverishly throughout the car but it was nowhere to be found.
"Damn" she thought, "I left it at work". "I'm not putting up with him again" she thought as she slammed the car into gear and screeched forward. Thump.
"Everything alright ma'am" drawled the cop, as she sighed in relief. Thank god I didn't find the gun, she thought.
Suddenly, another car zoomed past, it's headlights briefly illuminating the area around her; nothing there, was it her imagination?
No cell phone, no gun, no car. Maybe the article about her was right: she was the most clumsy murderer in the world.
Well, this tire is not going to fix itself. She got out, opened the trunk, and stopped. She would have to be wearing her best high heels and pencil skirt.
Her heart was racing. She felt the chill of fear gush through her veins. Her teeth were chattering as her eyes filled with tears.
Fumbling through her trunk, she found the spare and the jack, but the tire iron was nowhere to be found.
What now? There was nothing for it but to try and walk to help. There no houses in sight but surely one couldn't be far away? Ditching the heels she began plodding up the dark and lonely highway.
She stopped. Her heart pounding, What was that sound?
It must be some small creature scurrying through the woods, at least that's what she kept telling herself.
She started walking again but heard the rustle again - she stopped and it stopped - something was keeping pace with her.
Perhaps it was the cop looking after her. After all, she hadn't seen him leave.
However, she knew better... The officer she had spoken with was a friend of her ex. If he had realized the dire situation, he would have stayed with her. Or would he?
She paused, trying to decide whether she should continue down the dark road or retreat to the relative safety of her car.
Frozen in her tracks, her mind replayed the surreal turn of events from earlier that day...