I know I say this every November,

but I don't know why I forget that writing is so important for my brain. It's one of those things that quickly falls off my daily to-do list, especially once I flare or an infection crops up or a hospitalization, or even things like eating regularly or Christmas shopping, or what have you.  At that point, it's so much easier to spend my downtime wandering through some revolving cycle of Twitter, Tumblr, Feedly, e-mails, etc, rather than spending valuable spoons trying to create something, even if it's something just as small as a paragraph to post here. (For examples, see this entire past year on this blog, where I have posted less than I will during the month of November.  Grief and even low-grade illness management have combined into a total word-eater of a year.)

And then, I start writing, and it's hard, and I think everything I am writing completely sucks, and how would I ever let anybody read it, and why am I even bothering to try??? and then... Oh Look: Twitter, Tumblr, Feedly, oh my. Yeah. But then I've signed up for something, and I don't like to quit. or I've said it out loud and now people will know if I back out, so I at least have to put something; and the more somethings I put in, the better they start to seem, and maybe I'm not completely useless after all.

Of course, there's still a 60% suckage rate, but that's better than 99%, and it's better than writing nothing, which is 100% sucky.

I don't even know ~ I mean, it's really hard to keep to a schedule when you're chronically ill: Or maybe it's not, maybe it's just me.  I think part of it, for me, is that so many things are Have Tos, health-wise, that making anything else mandatory makes it feel overwhelming and constricting and I immediately want to act in complete opposition to that mandate. I'm a rebel! You can't make me! I don't wanna! Crumbles into a ball on the floor...

What, is that not how adults act? Am I supposed to be a grown-up about everything, just because, technically, I am a grown-up?  That doesn't seem right.

But there's something about NaBloPoMo, and now NaNo, the challenge of it, and the fact that I know so many other writers are out there typing their fingers down to nubs and banging their heads against the same plot walls as me, that makes it seem communal and joyful and not like a task that needs to be checked off the to-do list, more like something I'm happy to do.

Unless I am not making my word count. In that case, words suck, NaNo sucks, I am the world's worst writer, and YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.

But, so far, I'm doing okay word count-wise: I plan on hitting 25,000 either tomorrow or Friday, which is right on schedule, and I'm completely not addressing the fact that my main characters are now closer to 14-15 than 12, because, whatever, that's for the edits.  Also, I think there might suddenly be a relationship subplot, which I totally didn't sign up for, but we'll see if I can manage to make it not be the worst thing in the world.

So what should you take from this long and rambly post re: National Blog/Novel Posting/Writing Month?  Aside from the fact that my brain is a huge battlefield and you should be super glad that you don't have to enter it at any point in time?  Just that writing is a practice, like everybody who writes is always saying, and the more you do it, the more you want to do it, except when you don't. 

Logic.