The idea

So I've had sucess as a poet. I am a semester into my MFA, I've won a couple contests and had two chapbooks published. Ever after a new challenge, I have this idea brewing for a novel.
Its suspenseful. Its got a good heroine. Its got a semi-believable plot. I don't know if it will ever manifest itself as a novel, or even a story, but I feel like I owe it to the characters to give it a shot. But writing fiction is scary. The line between fiction and reality is so blurry, that sometimes I forget what's real and what's not. Is this character me? Is she someone I want to be? Is her situation one I long for, on some other plane?
Fiction is scary territory, especially for someone used to writing poetry. Poetry is easy. You take a situation and make it universal, or at least relatable, for other people. There is an emotional connection between a poet and her readers. Fiction is less personal. Its made up, after all.
But I think I'm going to write this. I scribbled some nonsense down while I was on vacation one morning while Brian took the kids fishing and the baby was asleep. It sounds like something you read on the back of one of the grocery-store novels, the ones the best-selling authors write. The ones desperate housewives pay 9.99 for at the checkout counter.
And tonight as I listen to the fireworks, I feel this character calling to me, telling me to write it down. I know what she wants to do. I just have to let her do it.