Writing: Life Gets In the Way

In November last year, I participated for the first time in the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) event, using the seed of a story I'd already begun many months before of around 7k words. Since the goal of NaNoWriMo is 50k, that gave me a bit of a head start, which was a good thing, since Thanksgiving really threw a wrench into the last week of the month, and I was unable to get many hours into writing, but I did finish, and I finished with over 51k words of a novel I was proud of.

It was a first draft, of course, and needed revision and editing, but I had finally finished a novel. It was far and away the longest thing I'd ever written before. But more than that, it was the beginning of what will be a series because the story wasn't finished. This book had come to what I felt was a natural conclusion – I told the story I wanted to tell and set things up for more stories to come. The seeds were planted, and all I have to do now is nurture them.

I drew maps, I camp up with cultural events, the concepts of societies that don't yet exist in this book to carry into future ones... and then I took a part-time job. (sigh) Life is a funny old thing.

Since I was in grade school, I've wanted to write. And I did write: terrible short stories I'm pretty sure are lost to history (I hope), bad and angsty teenage poetry (that I do still have), the odd assortment of unpublished essays, blog posts, a published magazine article and essay, two completed children's books in need of illustrations, a self-published nonfiction book (Creating an Heirloom), and any number of works in progress. With this new job and my daughter now out of school, I don't know what my writing life is going to look like.

Years ago, after reading one of Christopher Moore's books, I sent him a very fangirlish email and told him how much I loved his writing. I don't know exactly what I said in the email, but I do remember his reply because it was encouraging: he said he didn't start writing until he was in his 30s (I was in my 20s when I wrote to him). Even with than encouragement, I still sat on my butt for years and did nothing about it. I had hours while The Kid was in school to sit and type furiously, but other things got in my way (namely, me).

So what do I do now?

I'll muddle along as I have, stealing hours where I can for writing, and try to adjust my hours at work to reach some sort of equilibrium between work/home/life. And maybe I'll even get my first novel published someday...

Big Ideas

I found this nifty book (at Walgreens, of all places):

From C. R. Gibson; measures 7 1/4 x 10 1/4.
I don't see it on their website, may be a Walgreens thing only.

It's a journal of sorts, where you can note down your ideas, keep them organized. I had been looking for something like this for ages, something like a calendar, but undated, not quite a journal... basically this thing is exactly what I wanted. It's a place to put all my projects, and give myself a sort of deadline (where possible) for completion.

It seems to be helping? I've only noted 7 Ideas so far, but it's motivated me to seriously work on 3 of them. Maybe having them on paper instead of just in my head makes them more real. These are things that are not appropriate for a "to-do" list, things I can't accomplish in even a single weekend -- long-term projects that will take time to complete.

One of the things I wanted to work on was a ton of unframed art I'd picked up from conventions and other places. And the longer it stays out of a frame, the better the chance it will get damaged. I didn't even know much I really had until I gathered it all in one place! (It was a ton.) But once I had it gathered up, I could measure everything and make a list of frame/mat sizes I needed, and hit Goodwill. Lucky for me, Michael's was having a BOGO sale on frames, too, and I was able to get some bigger and odd sizes from them and nearly finish that project in a single week. There's a few more things left to go, but I managed to get so much framed and hung on the walls, and this was part of the catalyst that did it.

Some of the projects need to be done before other things can be done. I really need to make risers for my action figures (so the ones in the middle and back are visible), before I unbox any more, and before I can drill holes to add the "fence" in the center shelves. Making those probably won't take a lot of time, but it is an expense (lumber), plus the PITA of pulling out the table saw to cut everything to the right size. And I have to measure the shelves to make sure I know what size I need to make them. (Which I should go do, since I'm thinking about it...)

I'm trying to be realistic about my timelines for completion on all of the things I've written down. I have a lot of interruptions and I can't just dedicate huge blocks of time to things, because my life (and my brain) won't let me. But the next time I'm itching for something to do because I'm stuck somewhere else, I can grab this book and pick something that needs to be done. It's nice because it means that my jumping bean thoughts can easily pick up the threads of another project if I need to set another one down. It's not the most efficient way to get something done, but the only one enforcing the deadlines is me. (And having them written down with a time frame helps me stick to those, too.)

What I really need is Calvin's Duplicator box, so I can work on several things at once, but you know how that turned out for him...