Motivation and Weird People

So I secretly want to publish a book. I've done the newspaper thing, the catalog thing, and the magazine thing. But more than anything, I want to hold my words between two hard covers. I want art that helps the story leap from the page. And I want to give children a gift I adored, and still do: Temporary passage to a different world where strange, funny, frightening, and brilliant things happen to people not so unlike ourselves.

All throughout my years working, I've grown accustomed to the deadline, the impetus to work carefully, if not consistently, eyeing a looming date on which my fate hangs. While some abhor deadlines, I survive by them and don't know any other way to exist. And therein is the problem--Since I have no agent, no publisher, no nada, the motivation to complete even one story and market it is exceptionally hard.

Because I should really go see The Best Friend and her new babe. Or the house is a pit and needs cleaning. Or the dogs need to go for a walk. Or I must lose myself in the Internet/TV/book. There are too many seductive lures and not enough self discipline.

This is why I went about investigating a local group of writers affiliated with a larger, national society of authors. It's a well-respected group, one that several agents have mentioned in articles I've found on the web. So after an e-mail or two with the group's Secretary, she suggested we meet for lunch, provide online support, be writing buddies. It all seemed a little creepily over-eager to me. But I need help to achieve this goal. So I went.

And it was weird. She was nice enough, but so frantically spastic I had trouble following the conversation, let alone the genres she wanted to write about. Children stories. Illustrations. Devotions. And then there was the bizarre offer to start an editing service with her. (WTF?!?) And, as she mentioned, since she's a housewife, she has considerable more time to work than I do (plus a whole lot less burnout from writing and editing for a 9-to-5 gig).

So I'm no further than I was earlier today. I figure I'll go through the motions of keeping an online critique going with her, but it wasn't quite the motivating, inspirational exchange I would have hoped. In fact, in many ways it was just strange. For instance, I discovered her daughter's husband makes far too much money. Okay, that's a cumbersome problem! And this journal that she's showing me? The one I have in my hands between bites of food? Yes, she salvaged that from the trash.

Sigh. Why can't I find someone normal to whip me into writing shape?!