Two subjects came to mind for this, my first blog entry in months. As the first is a bit too short to warrant its own entry, I'll include it here with subject #2, the main thing I wanted to discuss.

Recently, I met someone who was trans--I think.

I saw her while I was shopping, with what I presume was her family. At first glance, she appeared to be like any sixty-ish woman I typically see in public. Then she spoke, with a deep resonating voice deeper than any cisgender female could possibly manage. So characteristically male, in fact, that it startled me for a moment. I looked again, and she did indeed appear a bit taller and broader-shouldered than most women. Before I could look a third time, she was gone, as quickly as she appeared.

Situations like this sadden me. On the one hand, I have a driving need to connect to others like me. I know of no transpeople in my town outside the confines of the support group I attend each month--to find one "in the wild", as it were, is a rare sight indeed. But I dared not out myself to her, and certainly could not say to her, "Excuse me, are you transgender? If you are, have I got the group for you...." If she was trans, I've just outed her. If she wasn't, then I've just told her she looks like a man in drag (or so it would seem to her). A definite lose-lose situation.

I can only hope that if she's trans, fate will direct her toward the little support group I belong to. She just seemed like the sort of person I'd like to get to know.

I've been reading a lot about writing in the months since my last entry. Unfortunately, that's also all I've been doing--reading about it. I'm no closer to making headway on my "Family Values" story, and it puts me in a paradoxical position. I can't solve my problems with it without giving away key plot points, and I can't start writing it until I do. (NOTE: It occurred to me after reading this again that this sentence was confusing to some people. I meant that I can't discuss the problems I'm having with a particular section of my story here on this blog without giving away the entire plot). So I do nothing.

Dorothy and others tell me to "just write." It's not in me to do, to write without worrying about how sophisticated it is, or how people will perceive it. Without worrying about writing a story with pathetically obvious plot holes. I wish to do more than the lighthearted little TG fantasy, and really SAY something. But it's becoming increasingly clear that such a story may be far beyond my grasp.

Someone on BC wrote in her blog about fear of success. That's not something I could ever be accused of.

I welcome success, crave it. But just as greatly, I fear being perceived as stupid. That my writing would betray glaring gaps in my education or even my everyday, practical knowledge. Researching is terrifying, as I envision fighting my way through an avalanche of information without knowing how to pare it all down.

I'm obsessed with knowledge, creative genius and IQ, and always have been. As a disabled person I all my life took it as a near commandment that I had to be like the disabled geniuses I read about. Christy Brown. Helen Keller. Stephen Hawking. But I'm not like them at all.

If by some miracle I do get more than a couple of paragraphs written, as I did with my incomplete story here, I'm usually shaking and on the verge of throwing up the whole time. Yet the thought of giving up on writing and moving to something else depresses me.

One thing's for sure. I'll never leave a story unfinished again, as I did with my first story here. You folks deserve better. Erin deserves better.

I know of no way of resolving the paradox of aching to write, yet having a terror of it at the same time. So I appeal to you. What do I do?