Rubble: A photo & some thoughts on NaNoWriMo

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

A photo & some thoughts on NaNoWriMo

Red Blood for Weak Women. Barn. Jackson Highway. Washington. August 12, 2012. Featured: October 30, 2012.

But will it help weak writers? Probably. But probably in ways counterindicated for people such as myself.

Posted this up on Facebook a minute ago:

Novel update: A part of me just wants to dive in and start writing. Another part wants another two weeks to flesh out the details before I start. Another part is pretty sure it's all crap and will fall apart as soon as I finish the first chapter. Another part is certain that this may be the greatest piece of literature produced this decade and, because of that, it will write itself with practically no effort.

The truth is some blend of all of that.

This morning, as I get to work, I am focusing on trusting the process.

I have a plan. I know from experience that it is a good one. I need to trust myself enough to follow it.

WTF am I doing posting a picture when I have a month to write a frickin’ book!?! Keeping myself sane. I’ll be doing this from time to time. The pictures will probably be of things that remind me of the settings of the novel.

I may do this often, or this may be the only time, over the next month.

Today, sitting down to get to work, I was feeling a little scattered after running around like a chicken with my head cut off all morning dealing with the boys’ issues (one sick, the other needing a check in with a couple teachers at school) and, well, the book was just sitting there staring at me.

Posting up a picture seemed like a good way to get settled down into work mode.

And after dealing with the frustration of slow interwebs and slower computers, writing will feel simple. Just typing, not waiting on the little spinning circles and hourglasses as I hover on the edge of insanity.

(5 minutes later, still waiting on everything… Oh, yeah. This is definitely working. Typing versus this? Oh Hell YEAH!)

One final thought, inspired by an old friend. He pointed out that “most creative work fails not because of any lack of talent or ability, rather it is never finished.”

That is my biggest fear heading into this, and one of the issues that I discussed yesterday.

It's also why I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. It’s a great motivational tool to get a solid draft done on this project. I've been avoiding work on creative writing for over a decade and it is time to get back to work, but there is also a lot of fear of failure heading into it.

That is fine, but I need to be sure that fear of failure does does not become an excuse to walk away from this.