Tag Archives: Writing

NaNoWriMo: Initial Panic

Posted in Life Ramblings, Writing by

It’s Wednesday morning, November 1st.  And I’m on my blog, rather than having a single word started for my novel.  If you think this looks like it’s not a good sign, you’re right.  It’s not.

Last night we went out for dinner to celebrate our Halloweenaversary (or, for those of you who don’t celebrate my made up holidays, the anniversary of our first date, which happened to be on Halloween).  I decided not to stay up to start writing at midnight because by 11 I was already exhausted, and in a food coma from a too tasty dinner.  I said I’d start first thing in the morning.

I woke up at 6. I went back to bed. It was cold. The bed was toasty. I would write better with more sleep, right?

I got up at 8:30, and it was gone.  Gone.  The story wasn’t in my head.  The ambition to get it out on paper, missing.  I had no drive.  I had no inspiration.  It was all GONE.

So of course my brain jumped to, “this was a stupid idea anyway!”

NO!!! I’m going to do this!!! I’ve been plotting for weeks! I’ve been wanting to for over a year! NO GIVING UP BEFORE I START!

So I went on Facebook.  And I updated my cover photo and my profile pic to NaNo badges.  If you tell everyone you’re doing something, you won’t walk away, right?

Then I had to get off Facebook because I set up these rules for myself.  Rules to make me more productive starting November 1st.  Like a 10 minute limit on Facebook, and I could only check it when I woke up, once in the afternoon, and once before bed.  That limit also includes any scanning of trashy celebrity websites, any reading of the news that is not actually crucial for me to know, the sassy Suri’s Burn Book, Twitter, or Pinterest (unless I’m actually ON my NaNo Pin Board).

It turns out the only things I didn’t ban myself from on my Bookmark Bar include online banking (depressing), a job posting website (depressing), a blog one of my friends in the peace corp posts on when she gets internet in a small village in Africa (ever few months at most) and my blog. So, here I am.  Maybe you’ll hear from me more than I expected in November.

I think that planning and plotting and turning this story over in my head for so many weeks has made it even HARDER to start, rather than easier.  Now it’s daunting to get it down on paper correctly.  Now the ability to put it all into prose just seems fleeting.

I will start. This morning.  I promise.  I might try the “get ready, quarantine yourself at Starbucks” method.  Maybe that will help.  When in doubt, bribe yourself with a pumpkin spice latte, right?

Right.  Wish me luck.

Excited For A New Challenge: NaNoWriMo 2012

Posted in Life Ramblings, Writing by

Lately, the days all blur together for me.  When I look at the calendar I’m simply stunned… The middle of October? Already?  The last months have flown by, each day quicker than the last.  They’ve been some of the most challenging days I can remember, mentally and emotionally.  Answers we thought we’d have in August, we’re still waiting for now.  It’s like our lives are on indefinite hold, and we don’t know when we will get them back.

When I started this blog, I needed to write.  For me, writing isn’t just an outlet.  It’s also what stirs my soul, what excites me, and what makes me feel like I have a purpose.  I’ve had notebooks full of stories surrounding me since I was old enough to put pen to paper… it’s just who I am.  Fiction is my first love, but as I was drowning in law school, I just didn’t have the time or energy to get lost in a story the way I wanted to.  And that’s how I ended up here, writing about real life.

Now, the table has turned, so to speak.  Suddenly, I have time.  So much time, in fact, that I have a hard time getting anything accomplished.  After three years of always having too much to do, and running full speed, everything stopped. Right now, we live with half our apartment packed, just waiting to hear it’s time to put the rest in boxes.  That call could come any minute, and we could be back in the rat race in moments… But as we wait, my first love has crept back into my life.

November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to those who participate.  The premise is simple: you have one month to write a novel; 30 days to hit 50,000 words.  I signed up for NaNo last year because I was desperate to get back to writing, and I somehow hoped by committing the time would just HAVE to appear.  It didn’t.  In fact, on November 1st I was inundated with new projects at school, and I gave up within days. I hadn’t really thought about it since.  Then, the other night an e-mail about NaNoWriMo 2012 popped up in my inbox.  I decided, almost instantly, that I had to do it.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write.  I alway have a few ideas in mind, with one in particular that has been floating around my imagination for about a year. But every time I tried to really get my mind around it, it seemed to fizzle on me.  I couldn’t make everything come together. So I stopped trying, because I knew if I forced it, it wouldn’t be any good.  I started brainstorming, and for days I was scribbling down random ideas, waiting for one to stick.  Then, as I was sitting on the couch with my headphones on and iTunes on random (to block out my husband’s basketball game on the TV), the story that’s been lingering for so long just clicked.  I could see it in my head, like a montage of scenes from a movie.

I can honestly say that since that night, my whole mood has flipped.  Yes we’re still waiting, and jobless, and on the verge of being apartment-less… but this feeling, having a story in me that’s just begging to come out, to me it’s the best feeling in the world.  I’m excited to bring it to life.  I’m daydreaming about it when I should be doing other things.  It’s actually pretty ridiculous.

I’m not giving up on blogging.  In fact, I’ve enjoyed writing this blog more than I ever expected I would.  I plan to post some updates as I stumble through this crazy month-long experiment (and the frantic planning that precedes it).  And I know that as life shifts again, and evens out, I’ll find my way back.  I’d love if you stuck around.  And if any of you are crazy enough, like me, to be taking on this seemingly impossible task, I’d love to hear about your journey as well.

Wish me luck!

The Year Still Starts In September

Posted in Life Ramblings, Projects by

A Ferris wheel at night.

It has arrived.  You can smell it in the hot, muggy air.  The end of summer is looming.  Sure, sure, the official end of summer doesn’t get here for another month.  The summer weather doesn’t even seem to be letting up.  But the fair has arrived, and I just finished my mini-doughnuts, and that means that the end is near, because summer REALLy ends when Labor Day rolls through and the First Day of School arrives, to the disdain of many children and the relief of many parents.

For the first time in two decades, this typically defining moment doesn’t really change anything for me… This year I’m not a student, and I’m not a teacher.  I could actually start thinking about life in terms of calendar years, and not school years.  But after twenty years of starting fresh in September, I just can’t give it up.  It’s my favorite time of the year.  Fresh notebooks and pens, drawing up new schedules I swear I’m actually going to stick to, feeling energized and ready to take on a new challenge…

So, in the spirit of starting fresh, the blog is getting a little renovation this week.  I’ve already begun, but I’m playing with the format, so if it’s kind of a mess this week, I promise it won’t be by next Tuesday!  I’m excited to get back to the day to day blogging that didn’t happen this summer and I’m looking forward to catching up on reading my favorite bloggers, and reaching out to new readers.

There are new adventures on my horizon.  I’m not totally sure what they are, but they’re coming, ready or not.  And you can read about them right here.

So lets soak up these last few sweet days of summer.  They’re almost gone!