My novel (feels funny saying that) is sitting on the bar in the living room. I feel like I should be working on it, editing it, making it a better story, but I really can’t get around to it. It’s not like I have so many other pressing things to do. I’ve got a job interview on Thursday, a party to go to this Friday and another one on Sunday, and then I’ve got to make sure I turn over every few hours so I don’t get bed sores. It would seem to be a perfect time to work on editing it.

But I can’t.

It seems like an even bigger task than writing it down in the first place. What if I read it and hate the whole thing? How can I make sure it hangs together properly? How do I learn to write those clever little phrases that make books so much fun to read? All of the self doubt I had repressed during the writing has now been unleashed and I am feeling its full firey fury.

In other news, what is my book about? You write what you know. It is about a thirty something year old unmarried Afghan woman whose life events lead her to a trip to Afghanistan where she learns some family secrets, then comes back to the United States and tries to put her life back together. She is a lawyer for a big law firm, and successful by western standards, but her women-folk from the east think she is getting older, uglier, and less fertile by the minute and view her ‘success’ as nothing but a hindrance. We’ve all heard it ‘men don’t like smart women.’ But in Afghan society, not only do men not like smart women, their mother’s (who are the ones who pick the women for their men) don’t like them. So, she, the protagonist, has some hurdles to overcome.

In still other news, how is the studying for the exam going? Well, I just ordered the book I will need. I figured since it is open book, I can spend the majority of my time tabbing to make sure I know what page to turn to when I need it. Close enough, right? I think there is truly something else at work here that is keeping me from (a) sending out any more resumes and (b) not putting in any effort for the exam. I think I know what that something else is, i.e. I don’t want to practice law anymore. But I can’t think of anything else I would do. It’s a strange sort of predicament, to go into a profession where people think the world is your oyster, but to feel so boxed in by it.

Ahhh. . . .life. . . .