Rational vs. Irrational

I reached the halfway point in my novel the other night. I'm pretty pleased with it so far. But what I finished was the easy part. Let me explain. It was easy because the research required to write it doesn't even come close to the research needed to write the second part.

This terrifies me.

When I told my husband about my novel a week or so ago, he was intrigued by the concept and thought it was a great idea. I thought this was a wonderful thing because he is a big reader and will tell me straight out if he thinks something won't work. BUT, he also said, "You're ambitious."

Hmm. Yeah, I suppose I am. Without giving away the plot of the novel (because to do so doesn't jive with my inner writer), this research has to be accurate. Spot on. Because if it's not, there will be plenty of people who will tell me so.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because there are lots of people that I can turn to who will have the information I need. A bad thing because, well, they'll know if I get something wrong!

Thus, I've been engrossed in autobiographies, historical studies, and surfing for articles on the web, taking lots of notes and searching for tiny pieces of information. I've found quite a bit, but not exactly what I'm looking for. I'm starting to think it doesn't exist!

So for the past few days, since I reached the halfway mark, all of this has been mucking about in my brain, and the irrational part of me has started (ok, has been for awhile) freaking out. How can I possibly hope to pull this off? Why in the world can't I write something simple? Why did I think I could do this?

Ahem. Yes, slight hysteria on my part.

However, the rational side of my brain has come to the rescue - I hope. I figure that if I start leaning toward those irrational thoughts, I will freeze up when it comes time to write. And that will be a bad thing. But if I take it slowly and get my details right (this is not a place where I can frantically write everything down and then go back and fix it later), then I'll be ok.

Slow and steady. I think I can handle that.

So! Off I go...

Have a great weekend!