377 Days - Blog #106, Nanowrimo Reboot
Oh, hey November 12th. How nice of you to suddenly appear.
Okay. Maybe it isn’t
that sudden. I saw you coming. You and your two weeks away from Thanksgiving
sibling November 13th. I saw
it very well last week. And even at the
beginning of this week. But that didn’t
stop me from ignoring the necessity of discipline and getting in a decent word
count. If anything, it just made me more
apathetic and disinterested in your fast approach.
Truth be told, that apathy came from some fatigue. Especially the fatigue of imagination. But also some fatigue of my eyes, because
staring at a computer seems so much drearier now that we are in the part of
November when the sky goes dark in the 4 o’clock hour. So…
forcing myself to stare more hours at a Word document when I had nothing to say
– nothing to add to that manuscript I thought I was ready to revive… just didn’t
happen.
Nanowrimo fail.
And yet…
I am still writing a blog every day. I skipped one this month. It was the only day I’ve skipped through this
challenge. And I have one or two in the
bank because there are days when I have enough to say in two blogs. So I feel okay about that. I have managed a word count of over 4000 for
all those blogs since November 1st.
So while, no, it isn’t much more than a three day average for this
challenge, it is coming up with an idea, editing, posting, and having the
discipline to stay on target.
The other thing is, I am tired for a completely other
reason. Something I decided to undertake
as a means to push my brain out of a writer’s block fog was to get up earlier (although
it was an exploitation of that daylight savings falling back) to exercise a
certain number of days each week. I’m
happy to say I have not let that demon of sleeping in overtake me except on an
allowed rest day. So there is that… and
it is a huge that, because I sit enough during the day. I would rather have the exercise routine down
than the word count routine. A routine I
want to take me well beyond November into the year I turn forty.
But I’m still disappointed in myself. Well, maybe not disappointed. Annoyed that inspiration just doesn’t want to
land on my shoulders with this story. I
look at the words that I like very much… and I like them very much, even with
their shortcomings. I try to figure out
something new and interesting for this character and her world… but I’ve done
it. I’ve done it. I’m not her anymore. It was fun to get inside that character for a
little bit… but we live in entirely different worlds now. At least a separation that doesn’t allow for
the fury of a manic burst of words on the page.
It is in a much more surgical point right now.
Maybe beyond surgery.
I don’t know. I’m
going to let that thought rest for a little bit.
But I’ve still got 18 days, November. Okay, 17 if we count the fact that turkey
comas aren’t very conducive to imagination or any conclusive thought
process. So, hey… why not? I’ll bank my 7000ish words thus far and start
new.
A new book.
A scene came to me as I drove home last night. And then another and another. Characters coming out of a shell and stepping
into a story. With layers.
So, yeah. A new
book. I’m going to write down that first
scene before my eyes get sick of the computer screen.
But all I’m going to say is, take that you creative
clog. I didn’t let you win.
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