Writing Ramble

http://somewayinwind.blogspot.com/

http://somewayinwind.blogspot.com/

I've started a new blog (which I'm doing through Blogger, because I like it better than livejournal). Here's the address:

http://somewayinwind.blogspot.com/

Woo Hoo.

It's more or less the worst godawful "novel" ever written. but it has 50,000 words, and this November THAT was the important thing.

Well, I did it. I've signed myself up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and, yes, I am ridiculously excited.

I am also aware that I just spent an hour tooling around on the NaNo website instead doing what I sat down at the computer to do: *actually* write.

The thing is, though, The NaNo site really is pretty cool. And exciting. It seems that anyone who has anything to do with Nano is just unbelievably pumped up. And that's contagious. And I like it.

Also I like *actually writing.*

And so I am going to stop procrastinating online now. and get my fingers busy focusing on my new(ish) project and working through my outline. By the way, that's a very, very, very loose term. It's not really an outline. And not just because there are no Roman Numerals. It's just a ramble. But it's a ramble that's moving me forward. And that I'd benefit a lot from finishing before November 1st...

So this is the first time I've ever tried uploading a picture on here. It's a little bigger than I wanted it to be--also, I was sort of hoping for an artsy off-to-one-side sort of placement--but I'm afraid I'm just not ready to figure all that out quite yet. Anyway, the picture is of my "October Board." And the reason I've included it (aside from the mere fact that everyone knows that a blog with pictures is automatically of a much higher quality than a blog without pictures)is that my October Board is a bit of an odd one for me.

The oddity is in the language found at the top of the Board, where I write my goals for the month. The source for the sort of hippie language you see there might be my new job. The school I work at is great work and a great program, but the language that's sort of flooded my head because of it is this very cautious, politically-correct, supportive and gentle sort of language. It's language the works wonderfully when engaging with emotionally disturbed young people. But it's a lot softer and gentler than the language I'm used to using in my own little head when addressing my own little self. And yet... well, it still somehow felt rather right to use that supportive, non-judgemental language on myself when coming up with my goals for this month.

I think I need to pause here. That sounded a bit like I was implying that I'm emotionally disturbed. And, well, while "emotionally disturbed" is a label that I could spend some time debating the merits of. And while I know for quite certain that I'm not entirely emtionally UNdisturbed. I do still think it'd be a bit self-indulgent for me to consider myself emotionally disturbed.

But that said, I am a little... well, perhaps just a little *delicate* from a writing point of view these days. Not quite able to pull off the whole Navy Seal attitude I sometimes like to fool myself into believing I have.

And so I seem to have a Board full of writing "guidelines" set up for the month of October. Not standards that need to be met. Not even concrete goals that can either be achieved or failed. Just "guidelines." A soft, gentle, potential sort of "nudge" in a productivish direction.

So I guess now the question is whether these "guidelines" will help inspire me to be a consistent and thoughtful writer. Or whether they'll be an excuse to get very little work done.

So there IS something tempting about publicly musing about the otherwise entirely in-my-head process of writing. It's 74% egotistical and 25% desperate--I recognize that--but perhaps that unnamed remaining 1% could wind up being useful, right? And if not, well, a little bit of desperate, self-centered venting can't be all bad...

So I intentionally failed my writing goals for the month of August. It was the first and only time in 3 years I ever failed my monthly writing goals. Doing so was... well, it was refreshing. But it was also scary. Because the momentum I'd built from the success of those monthly writing goals was often the only thing fueling me forward when I'd hit a wall and didn't want to write.

And so I went into September with a dry-erase board full of goals, a hand-drawn calendar where I could record my progress, and a very determined attitude. I also went into September with a new job. A new job in a currently understaffed department.

So September proved to be a very stressful month for me, and when the last week of the month came around I found that because of the several hours-per-day I'd been spending doing lesson plans and unit plans for work, I still had 25 hours of writing to do. AND the final drafts of my unit plans were due for work.

So I dug in pretty hard the last week of September and spent 3 hours/day writing after work, then another 1-2 hours working on my unit plans. When the weekend came around, I was on schedule, which is to say that I had 10 hours left to write. So I turned down a couple offers to go hiking, took my girlfriend to the airport so she could visit her family in Baltimore, and got to work.

Saturday was perfect. I did my five hours and even had enough free time to play some hockey.

Sunday started off great too. I went to Starbucks and wrote a solid two hours. Then I planned to meet up with the BWG. Realizing that September had dealt me a few blows, I'd told myself that time spent with the writing group could count toward my monthly "writing time" (not exactly unreasonable, right?). That would leave me with a mere hour or two to write after I got back from playing hockey later that night. Totally doable.

Except I wound up going to the emergency room courtesy of some intense dizzy spells instead. I lay there in my little pastel-curtained room for 4 hours, literally thinking "well, maybe I could just ask to borrow a pen and some paper..." But I didn't. Partly because I was still feeling really weak and dizzy. Partly because I was feeling sorry for myself because my girlfriend was away in Baltimore and I was chillin in an emergency room all by myself. And partly because after attaching me to the little heart monitor the kindly nurses disappeared from sight for a long, long time.

When I finally got home that night I sat down and tried to do some writing. But the thought of 3 hours of writing when I was still feeling pretty terrible was just too daunting. Which is my long drawn-out way of saying that for the second month in a row I failed my monthly writing goals.

And I am not happy about it.

I'm 90% certain that I have no desire to get into blogging at this point in time, but it's a lot easier to check other folks' blogs if I use this account, so...

I'll let folks know if I start posting anything worthwhile (well, maybe "worthwhile" is a bit ambitious in even the best of circumstances, but I'll let folks know if I start posting something).

- Jenn