Where I've been, where I'm going

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

I haven't posted in more than month. I've been busy.

For the fourth November, I attempted NaNoWriMo. Three years ago, I finished, achieving a 50,000 word novel. The last two years, I didn't make it so far. But I was optimistic this year. I had an idea that I had been thinking about for months, and in October, I even started writing things down -- characters, plot, logistics. I was looking forward to finishing Novel No. 2 in November. After midnight on Halloween, I started writing and knocked out 700 words before the month was even an hour old.

Then, November happened. November happened in a big way.

November really started in October -- the last two weeks of that month completely throttling my schedule. I wasn't able to manage any more prep work for the novel, and though I was still confident in my imminent creation, I should have recognized the signs that November would be nutty.

On top of the extra meetings, the extra co-op shifts, the extra shifts I took at the newspaper, the conclusion of soccer season, the beginning of basketball season and a major house project, I accepted a big contract editing job that took up a fair amount of my time the first couple weeks of the month. I got through it and was still somewhat optimistic with the novel. The words were coming easily when I did sit time, and I was thinking about the story often.

However, all the other stuff kept getting in the way. I'm not begrudging the other stuff, but it was either taking up time or sapping my energy. The last two Novembers have been like this -- it's such a busy month to begin with, then I take on extra work (which I can't turn down), and I feel buried. The kicker was the week before Thanksgiving. After working two of three days over the weekend, I was ready for a big session on Monday night. Then I was asked if I could do a rush contract writing job. Again, this is work I can't turn down, and though it only took a couple hours, it was still a thousand words I didn't write for the novel.

Finally, last week, I looked at how many words I had left, how much time I had left, and how many words I would have to write every day, and realized finishing in November wasn't going to happen. After finishing NaNoWriMo once, the desperate energy isn't quite there, even with a story that I was happy with. I gave it a shot again, and unlike the past two years, this is a story I want to finish and is in a framework that sitting down and writing 500 words if I feel so inspired will be easy. I'm disappointed that I didn't finish in November, but not so much that I'm discouraged.

So what did suffer this crazy November? This blog, and all the other writing projects I want to undertake. The immediacy of my other writing that I put on the backburner for NaNoWriMo will return. This post is the first step back.

Comments

Christy P. said…
Choose your platitude -
It's a new day every day.
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

No reason to let an arbitrary designation drag you down! I look forward to reading the work when it is finished.

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