It's a sickness, really

Okay, I had this whole entry written, whining about all the books I've written first drafts of and still have yet to finish. But then I reread the entry and decided it was boring and too whiney (see, sometimes I do recognize that about myself!) and deleted it.

Hmm. Now, I seem to have little to say. Perhaps that should tell me something about the percentage of whine normally found in these blog entries.

I totally vegged last night and watched the AFI give George Lucas the lifetime achievement award. I swear, my eyes teared up at least three times. When they showed him with his kids in all those photos, when the original cast appeared on stage together (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, R2-D2, C3PO and Chewbacca), and at the end, when they showed little clips of how Star Wars has affected so many people. Not in the crazy, costume-wearing kind of way, though there were some of those. But people who learned English from the movies. And a daughter who went to see the movie with her dad before he died. People who've been inspired by what he created. I swear, I still get chills every time I see those words roll up across the screen and I hear John Williams's score.

After mopping myself up with a tissue, I told my husband, "I want to be George Lucas when I grow up."

His response? "You want to be an older Jewish man with a beard?" Smart ass.

What I meant (and he knew it) was that I want to write something like that. Not for the money (though, hey, I'd take that too) but just to create something that inspired and touched so many people. Who knows how many lives those movies changed? It had an effect on mine, I can tell you that. My interest in science fiction started with Star Wars. I don't remember a time when I hadn't seen it, if that makes sense. I wanted to be Princess Leia so badly as a kid. Heck, if somebody offered that to me now, I'd probably take it too--gold bikini aside, of course. : )

George Lucas didn't create movie characters, he introduced us to people populating a strange and wonderful universe. They live on with us in our collective consciousness like distant cousins or that crazy Aunt Ethel. An seven foot tall dog that walks on two legs. A frightfully uptight and proper robot. A space pirate that simultaneously takes your breath away and makes you want to hit him. That is what I want to do every time I sit down to write--I want to introduce you to people like that. People you'll love, people you'll remember. That's what I want to do for the rest of my life.

The best quote from George Lucas? "I make movies because I have to. I don't know what else I would do if I weren't making movies." That's exactly how I feel about writing books.