If one were to click here, one might hear Tori Amos’ performance of “Blood Roses” last night. But what kind of moron would want to hear that song live?

I remember when I first moved to New York City and I had no writing work to speak of, I would get up every morning at the crack of 1 pm, haul my cookies down to Kudo Beans on the corner of 3rd Street and 1st Ave, and sit there on my dilapidated Dell and make up godawful stories for about three to four hours every day. I’ve never gone back and looked at a word I wrote during that time period, because there is no need to revisit such a heaping pile of goat manure. But what I do remember about that era is that what I was writing felt so important, so fucking meaningful, that even though I was pulling myself out of the worst depression I’ve ever known, it was like I was actually going through life with the ability to see in color for the very first time, as if I were in the center of a really bad (pre-Spidey) Tobey Maguire studio movie.

But like Reese Witherspoon post-Pleasantville, I sort of got my shit together. I got steady writing work, grew a backbone, and improved to the point where what I put down on paper no longer made me ill when I spied it weeks later. (I’m up to months now, thanks.) And then I paid off my credit card debt, stopped staying out til 4 am and sleeping through the next day, got a dog, moved into a nice apartment on a quiet block, and became so overwhelmed with little (and, at times, trivial) writing assignments that I completely forgot that the whole POINT of my moving to New York City (and absorbing $1900 a month rent for a 500-square foot studio apartment) was to write books. Many, many books. I’ve had two books greenlit by two different publishing companies in the last two years, and I haven’t written a page. Worse than that, I haven’t even come up with a sentence.

I thought that maybe I’d wake up and write a book, in one day, in secret. And then I’d release it, and even my closest friends would be all, “OMG. You wrote a book?” I dreamed this would be the easiest method, the nicest way to insulate myself from the very distinct possibility that when I sit down to actually write something that it will turn out to be as awful as the aforementioned tales I wrote four years ago in Kudo Beans. Similar to my avoidance of checking the “In a Relationship” box on myspace/facebook/Thanksgiving, I haven’t gone public simply because I’m too afraid it won’t work out. But I’m sitting here in Starbucks today about to start writing yet another article that isn’t my book, and I’m at a complete loss for words. And I think I know why. It’s not the article, it’s me, and what I’m not doing. So here I am, confessing my deepest fears. Sealing and signing them and sticking them up in cyberspace for friends, enemies, supporters, and critics to see. As caffeine as my witness, I will begin writing a book next week. And hopefully posting that here will make me accountable.