The Nano That Wasn’t

So last month, I talked about participating in NanoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with two books, alternating or working on whatever book I felt like working on. And at the time, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable, doable plan. Especially since I wasn’t planning on trying to make the usual 50,000-word goal. And then November actually hit. For the first half of the month, I had a lot going on with work, which is fine — I never complain about money coming in — and I figured, okay, this first half is a wash. Maybe I can just do Nano for the second half then. I’m chuckling to myself because it’s the 21st, 9 days from the end of the month, and I have yet to write a single word. I haven’t even written a poem. Nada. Nothing. So what the heck happened? Life happened. Life. Life stress. Health stress — nothing serious, but just enough to cause some…fun motivation issues. Chronic extreme fatigue being one. I’m still battling that. The holidays are approaching, which are their own unique brand of stress. Things are imploding. The thought is there, but every time I think about actually, you know, actually writing, my muse side-eyes me and says, Seriously? In the middle of this freaking mess? Have you lost it? And I sigh and set the thought aside yet again. It’s pretty awful, because my main way of dealing with stress is…you guessed it…writing. And I haven’t consistently written for years now.…

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To Nano or Not to Nano, That is the Question

It’s seven days till the big day — the first day of National Novel Writing Month, which is basically Christmas for a lot of us writers who love to participate every year (like me), and I am wibbling on what to do, like my fellow Turtleducker Kit Campbell talked about in her blog recently. Normally, because of work, I’d say no way, or sign up and attempt it and maybe write a few hundred or thousand words and call it “a valiant effort,” and feel like I tried, but damn, the experience was lost, again, because I couldn’t fully participate like I wanted to. It’s been this way for a long time. I can tell you already that I have an editing job hitting at the end of November. Not too bad, but…I have an ongoing job that got put off a bit due to some extenuating circumstances that needs to get done, preferably before this one hits. I have assorted author assistant things happening that are the usual things, but they take time too. It’s all part of my work, which I love, so this isn’t a complaint by any stretch. It’s just…I’m still trying to carve out the time to write more consistently. I can’t seem to manage it. I am hoping I hit upon the sweet spot, that method that’s been eluding me for literal years since I started my business…so I can maybe do something this Nano. It won’t be 50k like it used to be…

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Bringing the Fun Back

So I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and stumbled across this: Sweet-Ass Affirmations 2 / A Card Deck for Creative Maniacs . Of course I was intrigued. I followed the link, and discovered something truly awesome. It’s an affirmation deck, which is cool. Now I don’t currently own any, nor have I really delved into them before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. But what got my muse all a-flutter was the idea of fun and play and creative and mania and bringing out the joy in life – because, c’mon now, we all need that, but for me, I’ve been thinking about this VERY THING. It’s like the Universe is giving me a gentle nudge. Synchronicity. Because I was just thinking that I needed to make my writing fun again. I’ve been struggling for weeks on my novella. I’m in the process of loosely plotting it, building a bit of a roadmap to follow, as is my process, and I’ve found myself horribly stuck. The idea was exciting and interesting and fun months ago when I thought of it. Now? It just feels like work. It could be that everything these days feels like work. Work’s been crazy, my sleep is still not right, I haven’t been feeling good about anything, the pandemic has been getting me down (we’re still not out of the woods, but that’s another post), and I just feel very….hopeless? Pointless? Crappy? Right now. I can’t even put my finger on it,…

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