WRITING

December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)


Every day I think of writing.  Every. Damn. Day.  The writing I would like to do is to tell all the stories that swirl around in my head.  Short stories, novels, plays...sometimes things come to me in entirety...a whole plot.  Usually in the shower.  If only I could get out, dry off, and write them down!!


Most days what writing I do do is to journal late at night, just before sleep.  I have a wonderful journal that I love dearly.  It has a weight, a heft that is just right in my hands.  The paper is just the right gloss vs linen-y combination that makes it heaven to write on.  The space for writing each day is tiny--seven little slots on one 6x8 page--but there is an open blank page opposite it to write on or draw on or ignore (I've done all three).  It came from Starbucks.  In October this year when it all of a sudden dawned on me that the year--and journal--were about to end, I panicked.  I needed to get another journal just like this one and soon.  I looked at one Starbucks after another, at first casually as it occured to me standing in line for a tall, drip, bold coffee of the day, and then more determinedly when I couldn't find it.  I started asking the baristas who all just looked at me blankly and said, "This is all we have."  Finally I wrote someone at Starbucks Headquarters who told me Thanks For My Interest, but they weren't planning on carrying anything like that this year.  Would I be interested in a hot chocolate gift set?"  Um....no!  So, I'm currently on a quest for the perfect journal.  It's horrible to have found it and then not be able to get it.  (Metaphor for life, eh?) 


The problem, can you eliminate what gets in the way of your writing?, is a bit harder, because it has to do with my procrastination if I really pare it down.  I mean, I could talk about my hands and how hard it is some days to do anything with them at all, but so what?  It is just what it is. I have to start doing things in spite of.  So, the answer to this part of the writing prompt is simple:  I have to just plant my butt in the chair and write.  Period.

#Reverb10

I have known about the project #Reverb10 since last year sometime and was intrigued by it.  Over the months, for whatever reason, it's dropped off my radar. But I came across a tweet two days ago that referred to it and I'm once again enthralled with the concept.


I think it appeals to that same part of me that resonates with NaNoWriMo. And although I did piteously with NaNo this year (a mere 10,000 words, give or take a few hundred...depending on whether you count the embedded recipe and grocery list for that day!) I think the scope of the Reverb project is much more to my (dis)abilities.  


Let's see how I do!

Hunter's Moon

It's November!  National Novel Writing Month.  A month of writing furiously: 50,000 words in 30 days.  Harrowing, but so much fun.


I have participated in NaNoWriMo every year since 2002, which turned out to be the one and only year I've "won."  (Finishing 50,000 words by 11/30 makes one a "winner.")  Every year I've started with great enthusiasm, (at midnight, November 1st, no less) but in the past few years my arthritis has really gotten in the way and some time around mid-month I've given up. But this year I have vowed to 'write through the pain.'  At night when my thumbs ache, and in the morning when they really hurt, I wonder about the wisdom of this plan, but I so want to be writing that the pain of not writing is greater than my thumb pain.    

HUNTER'S MOON
This year I am writing a story woven within several stories.  The central story is about a developmentally-challenged young woman named Hunter, who lives with her hoarder mother. When her mother dies, what happens to her?  The novel is being told in an Olive Kitteridge style, in that other stories about townspeople will be telling Hunter's story.  I'm having so much fun writing this one!

So far, the Librarian has told his story.  It is day 9 of NaNoWriMo, and I'm not exactly keeping up with the goal of 1,667 words/day, but I love Hunter and her town and its townspeople, so I can envision staying with them until they tell ALL their stories, even after NaNoWriMo draws to a close.  I am having fun! 


  

First Post is Always the Hardest...

     I have an insane inner critic.  (My internal editor will beat yours, any day!)  Through experience, I've learned that I do much better if it's disabled.  I need to just plunge in--to any adventure or ordeal--and many times, as soon as I get my feet wet, that critic eases up some, which frees my creativity and my enjoyment of the moment. 

     So, here's my new blog.  So exciting...so daunting!  The past few days, I've been frozen...not sure at all, any more, that I even want a blog. 

     But I do.  I do!!  So, I'm plunging in...well, not plunging, exactly...more like dipping my toes in the water...but still, I'm in.