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pretty sure are lost to history (I hope), bad and angsty teenage poetry (that I do still have), the odd assortment of unpublished essays, blog posts, a published magazine article and essay, two completed children's books in need of illustrations, a self-published nonfiction book (Creating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...

Faking It

Faking It is a novel by Jennifer Crusie, and one of my favorite books. Because it's hilarious, I like to read it when I'm down, but then it sort of makes me feel worse. The main character, Tilda, while in some fairly dire straits, is an artist. One of the things she did when she was young was paint second-hand furniture with outlandish colors and silly animals. She also did 6 paintings, and reading the author's description of them (and the furniture) makes me want to paint like that, too. Except I just can't, and that makes me frustrated and sad. Frustrated enough to consider taking a painting class at a local junior college. To try to learn the skills needed to paint something created in someone else's imagination. Ugh.

And then the title hits me again. Faking it. I feel like I spend a lot of time doing that. (sigh)