What Scares (and Intrigues) Me

So yesterday I submitted some pages on my new story for feedback and then I was just kind of sitting around the house for the rest of the day, and I remembered a story idea (well, more of a setting, really) I had two years ago.

It scares the crap out of me.

Not only the subject matter, but the fact that it takes place in Chicago in the 1900s. Um, yeah. I've always been a fan of "write what you know" and I don't know ANYTHING about this time period. Seriously. My husband, who was a history teacher for nearly ten years, is ashamed of the amount of American history I know (or shall I say DON'T know).

But yesterday I took a leap. I opened a new document, gave it a title, and started writing. Only got about two pages in before I was googling things like "price to ride streetcar 1900" and "when were toilets invented". Yeah, it's bad.

I'm also reading this fascinating book about life during that time period, and I'm taking notes on details I might be able to use in the story. I told my husband this isn't something I can crank out in a year. It's going to take years of research to be able to write. And although that freaks me out, it's also kind of nice because that makes it more MINE. A labor of love. A hobby.

Maybe it will turn out to be something. Maybe not. And that's okay. It's awesome, really.