Thankful for the little things

Thank god I was able to get off the phone with Mom before she asked me if I'd written anything. I would have been forced to lie and create up something I hadn't written yet.
Which, in hindsight, might have actually helped. I'm way too into honesty these days.

"It's not lying, it's a gift for fiction!"
-State and Main

Basic Facts: Reading = Desire to Write

I know a fact: if I want to feel like writing, I need to read. This has been proven repeatedly in personal experience. Yet when I don't feel like writing, and I want to feel like writing, often (lately) I just decide not to write. "Not today," I say. Not today. Into next week I say this.

So, now I know exactly what I need to do. Not read over my draft just yet...but start reading something else.

I really need to keep a journal of what I read. I have a reading blog, but I need something less internetty...like a spiral-bound notebook. And even though I have like 50 spiral-bound notebooks, well I'll probably have to buy a new one anyway to be exactly right. I need to buy something that I'll have around for years and years, to document my reading over the years. I can hold myself accountable that way. And see how obvious it is that I will write more if I read more.

DUH!!!!!

It's a basic elemental fact that I need to hold onto these next few days while trying to get back into continuing the ms I started in November and dropped immediately after November ended. Funny...I had stopped reading when I started NaNo...and haven't read much since.

Now the big decision:

What to read? Fiction, definitely. But romance, literary, scifi...I'll have to peruse. I really don't feel like reading the books I got for Christmas. One is a "creative non-fiction," a term I don't even fully understand or give credence to. And I don't feel like reading "How to Write a Damn Good Novel" by a man who sold his fiction as a memoir (James Frey). Sometimes, I feel like I've read all the writing books out there. So I'm not motivated to read that. I'm glad my mom inscribed it with the year and stuff though. That was cool, I love that sort of stuff.

Maybe I'll read "The Accidental Tourist" again. Or "Crime and Punishment." I don't know! Too many decisions. I'll find something. I should probably read something I haven't read before that is acclaimed in some way (which doesn't guarantee but raises the chances I will enjoy it and therefore be motivated).

I'm learning I have to create willpower within myself. With some people it just seems to exist. They do what they 'want' to do naturally and without resistance from self. That's not me. I have to create the well, fill it, and maintain it, babysit it. There's nothing inside me doing it for me. Gorsh I were raised good weren't I?! No...that's just blame. I just have to learn to live and do the way I need to live and do, and stop comparing myself to those people who may only *appear* to be able to do things so easily. Maybe with them too, it is a supreme struggle. Either way, I need to focus on my own motivation and what I can do to make myself work without pushing too hard, which inevitably leads to giving up.

I need to write

I mean, I need to write in something other than a blog, or an e-mail, or a user identity and password.

Everybody's asking, have you started writing again? And now I just have to admit to them...I'm in the avoidance stange...though I can still weakly call it a percolation stage. (LOL, this was the novel I wanted to be done with, originally, by end of December.)

So tomorrow, on my to-do list, is FREE-WRITE. Writing without any pressure, just writing. and not to publish, or share, or blog, or anything. I used to journal pages a day...five years ago. What has happened? Maybe when I felt my life was 'better', less filled with drama and rage and emotion (still to an extent, but less so) that I didn't need that release. But now I find things creep up again when you don't flush them out.

I recently proposed to my husband that we should have a full day where we don't watch TV or spend time on the computer. This would be novel for us. He immediately brings up the fact that this would be hard to plan, because he has so many sports related things he'd like to watch. I'm still going to push for this. I think it would help us a lot.

I wrote today

Ever since the end of November, I have done very little writing. I tend to get emotionally and mentally very wrapped in up things during the Xmas season...and this year was no exception...in fact it was one of the worst Christmases I've ever had in some ways...but in other words the most 'maturing' Xmas for awhile.

Well, today I wrote a poem. I started reading the draft I stopped writing in November, and am seeing passages that are good enough to motivate me to keep writing, even if I do get that job I applied to.

One good thing about emotional ups and downs - it helps you to see life from all sorts of different perspectives.

Here is my poem, slightly edited:

SPEAKING OF

I dreamed I gave you a box of books
And the next morning
you were throwing them all away.

More than the hurt,
I was desperate for those books.
If you aren’t going to use them...

And some were important books
I needed them -
I had to have them -
They were key pieces
of memories, dreams,
special moments
of which I
can’t
let
go.

In the end I couldn’t decide
which ones to keep,
which to throw away.
Sifting through so many
titles, ideas, words...

Throw all the words in the trash.

An adolescent fantasy
of never having to talk again
It’s so hard just to talk to people
to be in front of people

So thank you,
For throwing the words away
They were just hiding something else
too important,
too sacred,
too divine
to be considered in something
as crude and as inaccurate
as language.

They will never, ever show
what I really want to say.



COMMENTS ARE WELCOME.

Slow going...

Well, I didn't win NaNoWriMo. And I haven't written anything since last Monday. But I did edit a couple paragraphs, woo hoo!! It's nice to be able to finally take away some words, because now I don't have to worry about how many words I have...lol.

I thought about participating in a challenge for writing 30k words in December, but this year I've written over 130k words..so I'm resting for a little bit.

I'll try not to stress about showing my stuff to my family..but that's harder than it seems.

Day 28 of NaNoWriMo

Well...now I know how hard it actually is for me to write that much...

I'm currently at about 34,000 words (reached yesterday) and quickly losing steam. I had a few days where the writing just wasn't happening, and of course Thanksgiving was an all day affair...

But I still have a chance, if I write like the wind and don't care at all what comes out...

I haven't already given up but, better luck to myself next year in advance.

If I don't finish the 50k by the end of this month, I will be by mid-December (I've got family breathing down my throat). And at least then I'll have two rough drafts to work on. There is still a bright side, even though I probably won't be getting that little certificate *sob*...and I actually thought I would get it, and easily...goes to show you things aren't always as easy as they appear!

Day Sixteen of NaNoWriMo

Haven't hit the 25k mark yet but I'm pretty close. Unfortunately my wrists aren't taking to the extra keyboard action, so try as I'd like tonight, I'm not going to reach halfway. But I'm much less behind than I've been this whole month, so that's good.

Total, 24,067