It was past the point that my polite husband wanted to stage an intervention because he recognizes how fruitless that can be. The voices in my head were surreptitiously building a megaphone behind a Rita Hayworth picture and scattering the bits of scraps out in the garden. Everything came to a head last week and I knew it was time to stop again. I squished the voice that tried to remind me that I had unchecked mail and items still in the auction house and i should probably wait 48 hours, log in one last time to get my affairs in order and *then* quit. Said squishing took the form of reminding the voice that I’d been planning that for weeks and that I really do still believe that it’s just ones and zeros and it really won’t matter the next time I break it out that I’ve lost those bits of code.

72 hours later and I have a new problem.

There’s just too much to do with all that freed time, and the writing ones are foremost in my mind, since it’s the “stories” in WoW that have kept me from making my own. I have a handful of projects that have stalled at the starting gate. I have more than one nanonovel that really should be getting a rewrite/edit before I even consider hunkering down for a 3rd round in a couple of months. I have a really great lead on a world for that 2009 novel, though, and I’d like to get it going, too. There are short story contests to find and create for. There are portfolio websites to finish designing and content-filling (okay, just the one). There are so many books to read.

Once the floodgates of possibility open, even just a crack, any number of other things come flooding through. I’m going to join a singing group for the first time in almost 6 years. I’m had so much fun talking to adults in a book club I joined that I’m planning on looking into taking some random art/craft/etc classes at a local community college or YMCA. There’s a 22-month-old in my house that’s ripe for potty training and big-girl-bedrooming, which will require turning our second bedroom into something more than a large storage area.

So many, many things on the horizon. The first and most arduous step is going to be creating that path forward, starting with applying the word “courage” permanently to my foot tomorrow afternoon.

Then I sort of stopped.

I told myself lots of things to distract me from the truth: I was to busy. I’d get to it tomorrow. It’s not like anyone’s chomping at the bit to read my next article. It’s not like I have some contractual obligation to produce on a weekly basis. I’ve been putting stuff on my blog so that

The truth is, I got a bit scared. I’d been paralyzed by the same thing that keeps me from working on my novel or letting anyone see it. I was so worried that my murmur articles were going to get steadily worse that I’d be laughed off the site, that I stopped posting. I hadn’t fully realized it until this morning. A review of Benjamin Buttons had been sitting on my hard drive for weeks and I hadn’t touched it, telling myself that as long as I got it out before the day before the oscars (because I was going to be watching all 5 best picture nominated films at a local event), it was fine. Then I realized that day was tomorrow and i needed to get it out today. Then I remembered the Chopped review that was even finished-er than the movie review that needed to go out before Top Chef was over next week. I knew I had a problem.

Oddly enough, the voice inside my head that screamed the loudest today was the one saying “Idiot! Never posting is the same as getting kicked off the site, only you’re not doing anything.” Usually it’s the ones going “You’re right. You’re doing the right thing by just pretending it never existed in the first place. Who needs opportunities and good things? Not us!” that are the loudest. I hate them, but what can you do. You don’t control the voices, they control you. Right? Right?!

Ahem.

Anyway, i got the good voices today, and as a result I’ve done a bit of finishing up and posting this evening:

The Curious Review of Benjamin Buttons
Chopped: A Tasty Reduction of Top Chef’s Better Qualities
and also, incase you’re here and somehow missed it:
not-live blogging this week’s grey’s anatomy (also posted today – I’m a machine!)

Tomorrow I’m headed out to the county for that best picture marathon. Sunday brings the Oscars. I was planning on almost-live blogging them as well, but I got a last-minute party invite. Sitting around with a bunch of movie fans, trashing the dresses and the bad speeches while eating and drinking tasty things sounds a bit more fun than hanging out on my couch, flinching while Ryan is forced to be within earshot of the whole thing (not a fan of the awards show, that one). I’m tempted to bring my computer anyway, but i’ll probably just make do with the iPhone and a twitter feed.

Now that I’ve got a bit of non-fiction out of my brain, I hope to turn some focus back on the NaNoNovel and the Great Idea(tm) next week. I’m way behind where I wanted to be when I took a break in December, and I’m not happy about that. Then it’s back to murmuring.

So long as the voices keep it up, so will I.