I’m working on a long post about NaNoWriMo and the meaning of life. If you can’t see the connection beteween those two subjects, you obviously haven’t been frantically writing a book for the past sixteen days. Or maybe I’m just delirious from too much writing today and too little sleep last night. In either case, if I’m going to talk about the meaning of life I shouldn’t have typos and I’m too tired to properly edit my epiphanic missive tonight. So, it’ll keep until tomorrow.
Until then, I am going to bed and dream happy dreams about being less than 5000 words from being finished with the NaNoWriMo challenge. Or maybe I’ll dream about George Clooney.
Whichever.
It’s Sunday, not Wednesday, and I’m well past the half-way mark, but I’m over the hump with my NaNoWriMo book. Today was a significant date in my month-long writing project. Last year, I only made it until November 13th before I ran out of steam. I also had about half the number of words written as I do now, which means I not only made it past last year’s quit date, but I’ve also been a lot more motivated to write this year.
Maybe the difficulty I’ve been having with my writing in the past couple of days was just the mid-book blues. Or maybe it was a mental block I created for myself. Last year, I gave up on November 14th because I didn’t have the time, energy or story to fight past it. This year… I wrote my 2000+ words tonight and my story seems to be back on track. I don’t hate it any more. That may change again, but tonight I’m happy with what I’ve written. It probably helps that I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday.
At almost 40,000 words, I know I’ll make the 50,000 word goal. It’s a good feeling. Even better is knowing that, despite the massive amounts of editing I need to do, I will have a solid first draft to work with. Which is a comforting thought as I go into the second half of this book (and the last 20% of the NaNoWriMo challenge).
Today I picked up Lani Diane Rich‘s Time Off For Good Behavior for a little inspiration. Ms. Rich has the distinction of being one of the few participants to sell her NaNoWriMo book. Time Off For Good Behavior was written during NaNoWriMo 2002 and was published last month by Warner Books. It helps to have a little tangible evidence that I’m not wasting my time and I could very well sell the book I’m writing in a rush right now.
Speaking of inspiration, remember when I mentioned a few days ago that I could use a little motivation in the form of a writing sale? Well, I got my wish today. I arrived home from my trip to the bookstore to find out the lovely Tristan Taormino is buying a story from me for an anthology forthcoming in May 2005!
I think my writing muse is trying to tell me something by bestowing this sale on me on this particular day. And I think she’s saying, Don’t give up.
I found this over at Charlie’s. It’s pretty accurate, except for that last sentence (I have a lot of hair and am not in any danger of going bald), but I guess if you ask anyone whose house or car I’ve been in, they’d probably tell you I do, in fact, suffer from hair loss.
KRISTINA
Your name of Kristina gives you the ability to be creative along practical lines of endeavour. Your ideas can be very original and inventive. You enjoy being with people in a social environment. Your personal appearance is important to you, for you desire to make a good impression on others. Your pleasant manner attracts people to you with their problems and you are capable of offering practical advice, though you would probably not follow such advice yourself. This name causes you to be somewhat too concerned with the personalities, problems, and activities of other people. You seem positive and decisive and can be outspoken in the expression of your opinions, but you lack the self-confidence needed to follow through with your ideas and plans. Procrastination is your downfall. You frequently choose the path of least resistance to avoid your responsibilities. It is not easy for you to overcome obstacles or face issues. This name does you an injustice in that it restricts your success in business and personal pursuits through a lack of ambition. There is a weakness in the fluid functions and in the region of the head resulting in sinus problems, headaches, eye, ear, or throat conditions and related ailments. Hair loss could also be a problem.
I went to bed at 9:45 p.m. and got up at 7:45 a.m. for work. I wish I could say I got enough sleep (even though it was interrupted, I probably still managed 7 or 8 hours), but I could have stayed in bed for another ten hours. I need to shake this viral thing I’ve been carrying around with me for over two weeks. I have my good days (Thursday) and my bad days (yesterday) and days like today where I just want to curl up and, if not die, simply sleep until I feel better again.
In other news, I hate my NaNoWriMo book. At some point in the past couple of days it has taken a bad turn. Everything I’m writing is crap. I know it and I can’t seem to stop it. I’m meeting my self-imposed daily word count, but it’s all garbage. I think (hope) things will improve. I have a couple of key scenes coming up and I already have them pretty well outlined in my head. I need to get back on track. Right now, I hate this book. Hate it.
December will be devoted to the January deadlines that are piling up in my in box-- there were eight, at last count. I just hope I’m not wasting this month on a writing project I’m going to end up trashing. The only silver lining is that while avoiding writing last night I started plotting another novel. Dangerous stuff, plotting a new book when the current one isn’t yet finished.
I’m panicking about the forthcoming holidays and all that needs to be done in the next week before Sheri gets here. I’m acting like it’s September when it’s mid-November. I dimly remember going through this last year, and the year before, and the year before, but I can’t remember how I get through November and December. I thought making a list would help me get organized. All it did was make my hyperventilate.
To round out the insanity that is my life at this time of the year, my going back to college adventure finally starts in January. Must meet with my advisor. Must register for classes. Must figure out what I’m going to do about my work schedule-- rearrange it, cut my hours or quit? Must sell a kidney to pay tuition. Fun stuff.
It’s funny how life becomes so much more difficult to deal with when I’m sick.
Okay, to recap:
At 3:15 a.m., I was watching Victoria Principal in soft focus talk about the horrors of wrinkles.
At 3:30 a.m., I was in bed.
Somewhere around 3:45 a.m., I was asleep (I was half-asleep watching Victoria, so it didn’t take long to finish the job).
At 5:30 a.m., I was awake as Jay was leaving for work.
At around 6 a.m., I went back to sleep.
At 7:20 a.m., I woke up suddenly, feeling like there was something I really needed to do.
At approximately 9 a.m., I was able to convince my body to go back to sleep.
At shortly after 10 a.m., my phone rang.
Somewhere around 10:45 a.m., after a groggy phone call with Rose, I got up.
Would somebody do the math and let me know how much sleep I actually got? It couldn’t have been very much since it’s now 11:06 and I’m ready for a nap.
What’s it all about?
Life. Love. Writing. Editing. Sex. Books. Romance. Movies. Friendship. Photography. Teaching. Coffee. (Lots of coffee.) Travel. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Memories. Experiences. Rants. Raves. Reviews. Babies. Pregnancy. Motherhood. Insanity. Musings of an insomniac writer. Want to know more?
