While cruising around MySpace today I took a peek at the featured book, which was Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer. The first thing I noticed was that the “leading man” so to speak was…well…a vampire. Sort of smacked of Anne Rice a bit, so I looked further. Turns out he’s also a teenager, and so is the object of his affection, and so this means it’s set in a high school. For goodness’ sake, I read to *escape* high school drama since I get plenty of it at work. (Especially today, geez….) But a lot of people sure seemed to like it based on reviews I’m reading. So I visit the author’s website and start reading the first chapter of New Moon (the second book of the series). The introductory page is an oft-forgotten–yet wonderfully appropriate–quote from Romeo and Juliet. So in spite of the teen-angst angle, I just may read a bit more of this.
Perhaps more importantly, though, I like the author’s own story. She is a busy mom like me, who wrote her first novel based on a dream she had. She stayed up late at night to write so that she could think for five minutes without being constantly interrupted by her kids. In the middle of diaper changes and trips to the pool, she somehow carved out the time to create what has become a wildly popular novel. That’s the kind of life I want to have. I want to be creative on my own terms, and be successful doing it. I want to have a life that is separate from the lives of my kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love them dearly. But I need to care for myself every bit as much as I care for them. And that means giving myself permission to be the creative person I long to become. I think I’ve just been waiting for the circumstances to be letter-perfect, which I should know by now is (a) just a flimsy excuse, and (b) never going to happen. The time to begin is now.