On Monday I created a video to share how badly I'm doing on National Novel Writing Month this year. I had one really good day this week where I wrote over 3,000 words, but then it all kind of fell to the side. Working on an essay project is a lot more challenging than working on a fiction book because I can't really just make a bunch of stuff up. At the same time, when I finished National Novel Writing Month last year I never wanted to see what I wrote again. I can already tell you that won't be the case this year. In any case, I'm hoping to do a lot of writing this weekend so I won't be very busy doing much else (except writing a paper or two).
I'm going to share a beginning of an essay I struggled through this week. I'm really excited about the idea but still need to fill it out more. The essay is titled On Planes.
I was a bumbling, tall girl in a giant leather jacket my father lent me so I could pretend to be Amelia Earheart. I was twelve and I thought I wanted to get my pilot’s license. My father had his and I knew he always wanted to be a pilot. I didn’t want to become a pilot, but I thought being able to fly a plane would be something that would bring my dad and I closer together. We could sit in the cockpit together and fly over cornfields and soybean fields and talk about what we thought of that yellow green earth.
Amelia Earhart saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair where her father tried to interest her in taking a flight, but she was too afraid to ride in what appeared to be a very unsturdy airplane. Approximately ten years later she took her first flying lesson.
My dad took me flying when I was three weeks old, I’ve never met someone who flew sooner than that, and it’s always been a source of pride for me. I used to have a recurring dream about it. I was outside of the plane in the dream, floating by it. It was yellow and black like a goldfinch. A small plane made just for three people. I looked through the window of the plane to see a small, baby version of myself sitting in my mothers lap. I am sleeping with a smile on my face
How are your projects going?