NaNoWriMo

I don't think I mentioned, that - in addition to everything else - I'm also working my way to kick NaNoWriMo's butt this month. I'm sure you'll be shocked when I tell you that my story started out as a fan-fic (and might still wind up as one, we'll see how far I stray from characters, time lines, etc.: It's definitely AU already, so we'll see). Given that I'm still reading (99%) Avengers fan-fic at an astonishing rate - can I make my way through an entire character tag? All 3406 (and growing) stories? Oh, I think I can. I think if it's a challenge, it's personally, totally doable.

So my current word count is 11,226, which was kind of shocking, and awesome, and somehow I'm up over 11 thousand (and 1/5th of the way done!) even though I felt like I'm writing basically fluff and nothingness, and it all comes so quickly, and I've got all sorts of "INSERT PLOT POINT HERE'" notations in the text, for all the stuff I'm going to have to fill in later, but: the words are coming, and maybe keeping me semi-sane in the land of chaos, grief and 'I'm totally out of my depth here, what the hell do I do"-ness.

Stucky fan-fic; rambling here, there, and anywhere my family can't see, and occasional frozen treats ~ things that are getting me through today.

And today was a bad one, folks. Hope yours is going better

November again

And here we are, ladies and gents. Let's kick this off with literally the shortest post ever. Because I'm sitting in a crowded living room with too many people and too much noise and I can't seem to think straight. So, short post, full of good intentions.

Well, here we are

At the end of November, and I have completed both National Novel Writing Month (#2!) and National Blog Publishing Month (#6!).  Thank you for sticking around for both of those - This year's novel is still unfinished  - in fact, there are a lot of parts where I just wrote such helpful things as "INSERT SCENE WITH MC AND ANGE FIGHTING VEHEMENTLY" and just skipped over the scene itself, for the sake of keeping the words flowing, even if they weren't right for that particular scene that particular day. So, there will still be some writing to be done, but the 50,000 (technically, at this point, 50,348) goal has been met, and that feels awesome.

As for publishing a post every day in November, I am so glad to have made it through another year and to help me break through the grief-word-eating-cloud a little bit. (A little bit? How about I posted more this month than I have since this time last year? Or at any cumulative point this year? Understatement.) So yay!

Now, if only I could read and write simultaneously, that would really help me out, because all of this writing has definitely curtailed my reading this month. She says as she checks the ridiculous number of posts languishing in her feed reader.

I'm just going to let this speak for itself:

Did some crafty things

with my family today - almost all in attendance (4/5 sibling family groups: pretty close!) for at least part of the day.

Most of the craftiness involved ornament making: last year we made lovely wreaths, this year, 2 different kind of ornaments.  One of which was the kind we used to make in the preschool with cinnamon and applesauce  - and glue, I do not remember glue, because at least 3 of the kids I used to teach would have eaten them, glue or not. Of course, I somehow wound up making the dough (even though that is not an easy job) and no my arm wants to fall off.  Mostly, though, it was a pretty good day. But also? I smell like cinnamon, as if I took a bath in it, really.

It's fragrant and festive, but it's a wee bit overwhelming.

Back to the grindstone, word wise: I'm almost at 44,000 with just six days to go - a thousand words a day? Totally doable.

Nine more days

I've been saving a picture (a really good picture) of Baby D to post for a day when no words will come. And every day, nearly, when I open up this window I think "Well: nope - no words today." But so far - to both my surprise and delight - I have been wrong.  Even if it's just the daily word tally (37,695, thank you very much) (although only about 1000 of those were written today) - at least I think of something.

So, hopefully I'll make it through the next nine days without running out of brain cells capable of creating words, and then you'll have a picture of the Dashman as your December 1st reward, for sticking through this whole month (especially all the world count updates).  Or, if you're like me, you'll have about 7,000 blogs in your feed to sort through that day, and you'll be really glad that there aren't any more words to read.

Let's see if you can decipher this bit:

Sometimes it's really hard to write things because you are so busy not writing other things. It's like the things you are specifically not writing take up so much space in your brain there is no room for any other words to be created, let alone come out.

And other times, all the stuff you are busy not writing shuts its big fat mouth long enough for you to carve out the two thousand words you needed to reach today's goal.

Luckily, I chose to NaNoWriMo this morning, when paragraph two was an option.

Unfortunately, I am trying to write this post this evening, when my only option seems to be paragraph A.

So all you get is some blather about stuff I can't/don't want/know how to talk about, and a note that I previously today have written well (Honestly, it's a historical dream sequence and so far I like it better than the entire rest of the novel. So, come December I might decide that my actual book takes place in Boston circa the fall of 1918, just in time for the Spanish Flu pandemic. But for right now, that's just my ghosts' back story. Yes: ghosts is supposed to be plural, because, better than halfway through the month I have suddenly decided that there wasn't enough peril in my plot and added a bad ghost to antagonize the good ghost and her friends. Don't even ask me. I think my brain is rebelling. The story is never going to end.)

OK, I'm going to go now, that I ... just said a lot of things and didn't say other things.  Happy Monday, everybody.  Less than two weeks to go here. 

Left the house again today

and, while I was out, took two text messages from two different sisters; both of them expressed surprised that I was actually out of the house.  "What is this???" one sister said; the other simply wondered where I was.  Both of them got over their confusion quickly when I told them I was at the library, however.  Even though I was there for an unusual reason - to meet up with a NaNo writing group  - our local chapter had an intermission today; I played Apples to Apples with some very nice strangers, some of whom were still in high school & made me feel very old because they didn't know who Eddie Murphy was, but other than that, it was a lovely time. I put my raffle winning prowess to good use*, watched a bit of Stranger Than Fiction, when it wasn't skipping in the library's DVD player, posed for a group picture (blech) and then wandered the stacks a while until Mom swung back to pick me up.

All in all, a pretty good day, even if I didn't get terribly far NaNo-word count wise.  I met the goal and all, but after such a rock star day yesterday, it was kind of a let down.

Oh well,

 There's always tomorrow.








*Have I not mentioned my raffle winning prowess? I am good at winning things you have to put your name on the back of a ticket for, particularly if you then have to put that ticket into a bucket. It has not extended into lottery winning, unfortunately, but I have won all sorts of things over the years; turkeys, a china doll, a picnic basket, various edible goodies, a basket full of books once, and a whole bunch of rather random things I can't recall right now.  Tonight's haul included a NaNo poster, NaNoBoston stickers, cookies and a travel mug.

Today was

our local NaNo chapter's writing marathon (technically, it still is) - the Boston chapter travels all over Boston/Cambridge/Medford area and writes at all sorts of different places - they even camp out somewhere (this year a church basement, I think) and type the night away: I had hoped to hook up with them tonight at the Starbucks in Harvard Square, but it was not to be.

Which is not to say it was a completely wasted day - I did, in fact, NaNo my fingers off, completing just under 5000 actual words (you know, the ones that wind up in the story), 2 hours of research, and a pretty good outline of where the rest of the book is going.  Except for how it ends, of course.  I mean, I know that it does end, I'm just not 100% sure how I get from where I'm at to where it needs to be (and I highly doubt that I will be able to do that in the remaining 19,995 words, but that's another story). 

So yes: Yay!  Novel is mostly plotted - I've done some course correction, I think I have ways to fill in the plot holes, and I know where I want to end up, eventually. I just have to write the rest of the words to get me (or, rather, my characters) from here to there.

I actually took some time today and worked out some character backgrounds, fleshed them out a little, even though it wasn't stuff I could include in my word count, or stuff that will make it into the writing - I found that knowing them a little bit better on paper (because I already had the beginnings of most of these ideas somewhere in my brain) really helped me focus and speed through.  Hence the 1 hour, almost 2 thousand words with which I am closing out my day.

So, I'm disappointed I didn't get to play with the rest of the Boston WriMos, but I'm going to try again tomorrow - they're meeting at the Boston Public Library for an 'intermission' - a little movie and some games and chit chat and things to clear your head space as we hit the final two weeks.  I'm hoping, now that I've got some scenes in mind and a broad sketch of where to wind up, they won't be that hard on me.

I know for some people, it's hard at this point to keep the momentum coming, but last year week 2 was my toughest - sloughing through all the rough and random edges of a story, trying to figure out how all the scenes should cram together to create some sort of puzzle, gnawing off the pieces that don't fit, and hoping you didn't lose anything too important. I'm hoping that I just cleared that difficult mess of my plate, and the rest will be "oh yeah, I know what needs to go here," or "Clearly I am a genius, because this is the best story ever!!"

Neither of those things are anywhere close to the reality of what will be happening in the next 14 days, but just having the numbers - both days on the calendar and word count numbers - on my side makes me feel good.  So when I am pulling my hair out next Wednesday (because Wednesday is pie-day, and I hope to be finished by then hahahahahahaha), you can all remind me how I said the worst was probably over, and I promise not to curse at you too much.

Of course, as previously discussed, my cursing is currently at Scooby Doo levels, so you have nothing to worry about either way.

Of course,

Since I wrote about enjoying writing so much yesterday, today writing decided to kick my ass.  What else is new?  Honestly, it wasn't that bad, but instead of taking a half hour/hour to write my daily goal, it took twice as long, and I had to stop 640 words short of 25,000 because I had a dentist appointment.  I spent the whole appointment (when not warning the hygienist that if she popped my jaw out of joint again, she would have to be the one to pop it back it) fuming at my characters and wondering if I could justify writing a scene where one of them has to go to the dentist, just to make them suffer.

I didn't come up with a good way to fit that into my story line - YET - but they're all on warning.  So they better get with the program tomorrow and play nice, or the next ghost that makes an appearance is going to be a malicious dentist with a grudge against teenagers and a ghost drill.

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. 

NaNo used up all my brain cell spoons

After a long-ish weekend - what with kiddos sleeping over, dinner & games yesterday, and then actually leaving the house to do a thing last night - I am exhausted and flaring; Surprise! Fibro just dialed the pain up a few notches for me today, is all, and the accompanying brain fog has been lighter the last hour or two, so I'm trying to sneak in some words. 

In the course of hitting today's NaNo goal, a plot point came up and hit me between the eyes with a 2x4, which I find very inconvenient.  I seriously have no idea if it's just my scrambled egg brain today, or if some characters are starting to...do things I didn't think they would do, but I might be in trouble, sub-plot wise.  That's ok, though, because I don't have to fix it today! (Another post might be upcoming on the subject of writing and denial, because I feel so strongly on this subject.)  

Last year, I did NaNo completely last minute, as a means of distracting myself from my grief, and told nobody (in my real life) about it at all while I was toiling away.  When I passed the 50,000 words, I did tell my mom, and although I skirted the issue a bit with a few other people - my sister, who's a poet, and I were talking about writing through the parts you feel stuck on, even if what you are writing is complete crap and you know it's not going to stay, for example - I think that was it.

This year, not only did I mention it here and on Twitter, I told Mom before the month started that I would be quarantining with quiet in the mornings, and not to be worried if I didn't poke my head out until noon (because - for the most part - my rule is to get the writing done, or at least get some writing done, first thing in the morning: if I do that, even if I go back to add more during the course of the day, at least I'll have something.) (Also, if I go out and have breakfast and talk and whatever, then turning on the TV or scrolling through Facebook while I'm drinking my tea is too easily done and too attractive to me - If I give myself the opportunity to be distracted, I will be distracted.).  And over the weekend, I chatted with the kids about it - about how I would need some time to myself (which, when they're here I hardly ever take), and how I was stuck on specific parts of the story, and how, no, I didn't know how it would end yet.

It was really nice to talk to them about it, knowing that I had a NaNo under my belt, and that I was capable of finishing this one - even if I don't finish it in time, even if it winds up being National Novel Writing Year for me: I'm going to be able to finish this piece of work at some point, and so I could talk a little bit about it.  They wanted to read it, which was hilarious, because: NO.  Nobody reads it, which was a whole thing that they did not get at all, which is great because I love it that they're comfortable and confident enough to share whatever they're making, and I hate it that sometimes I am not, but right now? No.  Mine; Don't even bother asking.

And I got some bad news from my 13-yr-old nephew, on the 12-yr-old girls and swearing front: "Schnikes!" and "Zoinks!" are definitely not  making a comeback.  In fact, he blushingly and under the promise of not getting in trouble, told me that he and his friends curse much more than ... well, anybody.  Especially if they are playing X-Box (My brother concurs; said nephew has had to be reprimanded more than once for his use of foul language on that foul machine). 

Now I knew that Scooby-Doo cursing was more than likely not in vogue, but I admit I'm disappointed that my angel-faced-gentleman nephew has a sailor's mouth - and apparently so do his lady friends.  (Although he did say that he doesn't hang out with girls all that often, so he's just basing it on what he has heard in "like school (?!) and recess and things".) I guess that makes us equal though, since said angel-faced-young gentleman nephew gave me such a disappointed look when I explained to him that not only did I not curse when I was 12, I barely cursed at all until I was in my 20s, and even now, I just... don't like to.  (Most times: Sometimes, a Sunavabitch just needs to get called a Sunavabitch.)

Besides, I really think it's time for a "Scnikes!" renaissance.

Spending the day with the littles

almost forgot about this here blogging thing (got my NaNo words done this morning before they got here.  Good thing somebody needed snuggles and company before she fell asleep. 

Back tomorrow, when we can all commiserate over the fact that 12 year olds apparently swear like sailors and I am seriously out of touch.

Today I had the most free time I've had all month

and the smallest word count. I don't even know ~ writing is hard. 

You guys, I'm afraid my 'novel' has no plot. I'm afraid it is just witty banter between a bunch of random 12 year olds and a ghost, at this point; and (in all honestly) the ghost is not holding up her end of these conversations. Of course, that's what half the banter is about - "stupid ghosts and their cryptic, ridiculous, non-clue-ish clues" .  The other half of the banter is between two 12 year old girls who used to be best friends and then something happened.

 I am not being coy by writing 'something happened'; I legitimately do not know yet. Mostly they're just aiming little poison barbs at each other, with the kind of precision that only (pre)teen girls -and particularly girls who know each other very well - can manage.

I'm trying to decide whether it'll be more awesome if their friendship just sort of... dissolved or if it completely blew up. There's certainly going to be blowing up somewhere, but I think, from my own experiences, that it's more realistic that friendships just kind of... break up, piece by tiny piece, in such dribs *and drabs, so slowly that you hardly notice it, you just feel little twinges along the way, and all of the sudden .... everything's different.

Especially when you're twelve.  I feel like twelve/thirteen/fourteen was a whole 'how the hell did the earth shift out from underneath me' kind of experience, and that's the feeling I'm going for with their friendship.  Of course, people handle that kind of thing in very different ways, and one of those ways (at least in my experience/in this book) is to be super sarcastic to each other.  My main character is a snarky little demon, and the other girl - who was dealing with the same things, but dealt with it by just... moving on, instead of being hurt -  is, now that they're thrown together again (courtesy of aforementioned ghost) is now surprised and hurt by the main character's reaction, and trying to hold her own.

This sounds so ridiculous, trying to explain it like this.  My whole point was... seriously, plot: wouldn't you like to make yourself a little bit clearer, because we still have 33,000+ words to write, and - as much fun as it is to write the sniping scenes - I have a feeling they'll get old pretty quickly. 

Also - I don't know how many of you others are writing mysteries, but how hard is it to write a mystery that is hard enough not to be instantly solvable via Google, but still easy enough for your characters to eventually figure out?  I am having the hardest time, but I've never attempted to write a mystery before. I hope that I'm getting a little bit of slack since they're, you know, 12, but Dang: Google, you are making mysteries very difficult to write!

*isn't drib a word? at this point I might as well be inventing my own language, and we're only  nine days into NaNo!, but I could have sworn 'dribs and drabs' was a saying - Google agrees, Blogger, so you lose!

Totally on top of things

... except for how, maybe, I almost forgot to blog tonight?  Oh well: 10:30 - I'm still on top of things, right? Today's writing issue? Plot holes, and how I fell down one.

Or, more specifically, how I wrote myself into a corner, and now I have to figure out a way to write myself out of it. It's not a plot hole so much as "I don't really have a plot?" and "Couldn't my characters just sit around and trade barbs for the next 40,000 words?" Because, seriously, that's what the first 10,000 have been, and it's working so far!

But now I've got a couple of twelve-year-old girls who kind hate each other, a ghost who doesn't really want to talk to either of them, and a mystery that I ... haven't figured out which way it should go yet.  In all honestly, I haven't figured out what the mystery is, exactly. Which is kind of important, and tomorrow's problem!

But for today, boy am I having fun making twelve-year-olds snark at each other.  There's also a 10-year-old, the main character's little sister, who so doesn't have time for either of their shit - she's all: "Listen, chicas, shut it. I think our, you know, GHOST PROBLEM, is kind of more important than whatever it is the two of you are squabbling about right now." I kind of love her, even though I'm supposed to like the main character and her ex-friend better.  Oh, well!

Off to bed - see you all tomorrow.

Zoinks!

The current funniest thing about my work in progress is that I have no idea how 12 year old girls curse. And my main character, as well as her former best-friend/current nemesis, are both twelve year old girls who are provided with many opportunities to curse (even though we're only about 4 chapters into the story).

So, instead of swearing outright  - which, probably? is what 12 year-olds do? - I mean I realize my 13-year-old nephew probably has a truck driver's mouth around his friends,  but here I must give my standard "I don't really like cursing, and was a total goodie two shoes as a child, and probably didn't curse in my head, let alone out loud until I was graduating from high school" explanation*. 

Either way, for right now, in the NaNoWriMo flurry of words, I'm inserting different ridiculous made up curses, like "Shnikies" and "Zoinks."

So, basically, my two main characters sound like they are directly out of a Scooby Doo cartoon. Eventually, when the time for editing comes, this will become a problem.  Right now? It's making the re-reads pretty freaking hilarious.


*If you have any opinions on what curses are popular with the tween-set, please, feel free to share them in the comments. 

Taking my own advice

from yesterday, and trying to get ahead of the curve here.  Because today I've got a 24-hr Halter test so I've got to go to the hospital and get all hooked up, and I don't know how much energy I'm going to have tonight, so here's today's post.

----

In the interest of keeping things moving, and for all of us Na/No/Blo-ers, a little writerly wisdom:

“What I have since learned is that writing is this incredible gift into yourself– it is one surefire way to discover what it is you know, what you think, how you want to be in the world. Writing can be the ultimate truth teller.”

                                                                                              Rosie Molinary: Welcome Home, You WIll Always Be Safe Here, Dec 2011

Don't t forget to tell some truths today! 
  

Just a little thought -

Third day, and I'm sharing a tip I've seen a few other places, but I've got a different reasoning, so I figure it's fair game.

When I mentioned on Tumblr that I was participating in NaNoWriMo, a couple of people contacted me to give encouragement, ask what I was planning to write, etc.  Given that most of what I post there is chronic illness/spoonie related, it will come as no surprise that many of these private messages came from other spoonies. During one of these conversations I mentioned that I was going to try to front-load as much writing as I could manage in the first week or so, because I will - without a doubt - 1) have low/no spoon days; 2) get sick at some point (to varying degrees of sickness, but hopefully nothing serious; 3) want to spend time doing something other than write - like eat on Thanksgiving, or spend some time with either of my November birthday-girl sisters; 4) have days when writing is just not happening or other things are much more interesting and words are stupid; or 5) days when you have other commitments and just don't see how to squeeze some writing in.

Now, I've seen this tip in relation to issues #3-5 - I won't be the only NaNo participant planning on some turkey and pumpkin pie this month, and a lot of other participants will have a ton of commitments that I do not - full-time/part-time jobs, families that they have to care for every day, travel schedules, kids hockey games they have to sit and watch and freeze at, whatever. And I'm sure we will all be faced with a day when, as happened to me last November, the sum total of our (usable) words will be the ones that are the main characters names - everything else will be a whole bunch of nonsense. (Countable nonsense, as far as word count goes, sure; but I always felt like it was almost cheating if I knew that it would never actually end up anywhere near the finished project.  But that's my inner editor at play, and she's supposed to be on vacation this month.)

But I haven't seen a lot of discussion surround issues 1 & 2, and I realize that for most NaNo participants, they won't come into play: A low energy day here or there for a non-chronically ill person, is not unheard of, certainly, but ... its a different kind of energy when you start talking about spoons.  On a day when I have no spoons, I don't mean that I might be too exhausted to write - I mean that I would (most likely) be too exhausted to eat. To take my meds. To roll from one side of the bed to another. To hold a pencil, or open up the laptop cover, let alone lift the thing that suddenly weighs more than 900lbs. To think through the brain fog enough to remember to brush my teeth after breakfast, instead of before. To try and remember if I took those pills already or if I just pictured taking them (which is why I have a whole pill system, but that's another post).

So writing anything legible or interesting, or valid (in my own opinion) on those days? Even if I keep to the daily schedule that everybody recommends, or force myself to sit in front of the computer during what is my usual writing time? It's simply not an option.  And that's ok: it's not a huge deal.  It is a knowable obstacle for me, because I have been doing this for a long time.

As for #2 and the likelihood that I will fall ill this month? Today is the 3rd of November - yesterday  I visited with three children under the age of 10, and a newborn, and some adults. Today I can't move. It is a very high pain day; and it is possible that it could turn up to flare levels, but I'm hoping it doesn't. Pain is (for the most part) something I can write through (depending) - but if those little lovely ragamuffins also brought me some nice germs, or if my visit to the hospital tomorrow where people are apparently incapable of not coughing on me results in my next bout of strep or the flu, or - god forbid - something more serious; well then, all writing bets are off. It'll be a constant game of who knows.

Which is basically how it's going to be anyways, for all of us: a giant game of "Am I going to write the words today?" "Am I going to make the daily/weekly/monthly goal?" "Can I shut my inner editor up long enough to reach 50,000 words?" - We're all in a limbo here, and that's part of the fun.

But if there's anything I learned in the years of trying to complete college and deal with chronic illness at the same time, it's to get as far ahead on the syllabus as you possibly can, while you can. So, if I can write an extra thousand words today, I'm going to. So that I'll have that little cushion there for tomorrow, if I need it. 

Because, even though the goal is to write everysingleday, and even though I am remembering that the more I write the more I want to write, November is not a month set apart from the rest of my life - it is not going to be some magical oasis of health and vitality and peace and calm and quiet, no matter how much I may wish it so.

So, that's my (completely unoriginal) piece of advice to all you other NaNo writers (and goddamn it, we are all writers!); Spoonies and non-spoonies alike, if you can - give yourself a little cushion, for the hard days, so you'll have something to fall back on.

Ahead, to day 4.

Hi Guys!

Are you ready for me to write more here in the next month than I have in all the previous months of this year combined? I thought so! Welcome to yet another NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month - where I will attempt to write everysingleday, and you will attempt to not get bored of me writing everysingleday.

Considering how much little writing I've done since last years NaNo/NaBlo, this should be a real surprise for both of us!

I've already gotten off to a good start with my NaNo word count - met today's quota, and am going to be attempting to pad it a little bit, because I know I will have zero spoon days between now and the 30th, and I will need all the padding I can get to make it to 50,000 words. This year's book is a little bit more plotted out than last years - which means that I thought about it for at least 5 minutes before starting this year, because last year I didn't think about it at all.

I've got a very vague outline of what I'm hoping will turn out to be a middle grade/YA mystery novel - the middle grade/YA decision being dependent upon whether or not I can write it in the tone I'm hoping to strike, or if I make a bunch of 12 year olds sound like adults, in which case when editing time comes, there'll be a ton of work to do. But I'm not going to worry about that for now!

Nope, at this point, it's all about getting the words down on paper, getting the story out into the world. And this year, I actually know a lot of NaNo participants (and/or people I know are participating in NaNo), and am hoping to go to one or two of the local meetups - look at me, all doing more things I'm uncomfortable with!

But the main focus for the month - to the detriment of preeety much everything else (aside from my health & the people I care about, basically) - is going to be getting a book out of my brain and into my computer screen.  Without editing it a million times (one of my mistakes last year was that I kept going back all the time), or being super judgemental about it (who, me?).

For all my fellow NaWhatever participants: Good luck, good luck, good luck!  Let's get to writing! Follow me on Twitter, or add me on your NaNo page, if you want to commiserate about word counts (I'm a good commiserator).  See you at 50,000! (I'm NeverThatEasy on both of those, btw.)  For those of you just following along, and thinking "what a bunch of kooks, to try to do this in November of all months" - Right?  What were we thinking??? Please keep your fingers crossed for us, and, if you follow me on Twitter and want to bug me about my word count (if I haven't mentioned it in a while, for example), please feel free!  3/4 of the reason I believe I can do this is because I really hate to let people down, so now that I've told everybody, I feel like I have to do it for real. 

Current word count, by the way, after an hour or so of writing this morning is 1684. Definitely time to pad that a little.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

I took a couple of days off there, to deal with the flare from the steroids, and am finally beginning to feel more human again, so I'm back.

And I'm back with a jumble of thoughts (which is so unlike me, I know) and some interesting (to me, at least) revelations. 

While I was gone, I had a rheumatologist appointment, that was basically a waste of time, energy & spoons, but that left me feeling like "why do I even bother?"  The doctor was very nice, he managed to cross another scary diagnosis off my list, but, in the end, as always, he just said "Well, it looks like your doctors are trying everything that we know to try.  Unfortunately, Fibromyalgia is just one of those things were there's not a lot we can do for you."  He did add "which you obviously know," which was a nice recognition to get, but still: in the face of the worst pain flare I've had all year, it wasn't a lot of help (neither was his examination, which I managed not to cry through, only to burst into tears the minute he left the room.  Attractive.)  Anyways, I try to wrangle December into being as appointment free as possible, because of all the other, happier chaos that manifests itself around this time of year, but between the emergency room visit and this rheumatologist, I wanted to cancel ever appointment I have between now and ... forever, just because.  I didn't, because I've got the dermatologist next week (need non-steroidal answers for allergic reactions and eczema, please) and then I'm clear till the New Year.  At which point I have to psyche myself back into attempting physical therapy again, but I'm in no mood to try that yet, so I'm not going to think about it right now.

Speaking of not thinking about things, ahem: here are the revelations I was talking about:

 So I realized a few, kind of important things the other day, in the midst of the flare-that-made-me-want-to-murder-things.  First was that I'm glad I remembered enough from my college cramming days to plan ahead with my NaNo word count.  I managed to pad myself well enough on the good days, because I knew over the course of the month that I would have days when I physically would be unable to write - not to mention that there would be just regular bad "oh my god where have all the words gone" days - to have hit the 50,000 mark a few days before November 30th.

 Which turned out to be excellent, because the 29th is the day the steroids worked their vicious magic, and I have contributed nothing meaningful to the novel since then.  So, Hooray for the paranoid pro-active part of me that remembers that when there's a deadline for things, my body usually has a way of saying "fuck that!" at the exact wrong moment.  (Witness, pretty much every semester of college, ever.) 

The second thing I realized is that the whole endeavor of writing a novel - which turned out to be a overwhelmingly positive experience for me, in terms of creativity and confidence and just the power of setting a goal and accomplishing it - was basically a huge, spur of the moment diversion for me.

That's right, people, let's just take a minute to bask in the glory of this statement: the power of my intense ability to procrastinate is such that I SPEED-WROTE A NOVEL in order to not think about what was actually going on in my life. 

Which is both sad.  And Awesome. 

I had no idea, on October 31st, that I was going to start writing a novel the next day.  I was wandering around the internets, doing my usual Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Amazon, Reddit, YouTube, I could major in the internet routine and came across someone else's "I'm going to be writing a novel, starting tomorrow" post and it pushed a button in my head.  I knew about NaNo, of course, and have spend years making the face of someone who wants to write but doesn't understand why you'd pick NOVEMBER, aka smack dab in the middle of the craziest time of the year to sit down and start writing a novel with speed and ferocity.  It's always seemed illogical to me, knowing what a regular November is like around here, that NaNo would be something I could ever participate in.  And, I think, if I had given myself the chance to talk myself out of it, it wouldn't have been something I ever participated in.

Instead, fueled by my profound need to not be where I am right now, not deal with the people around me right now, not feel the way I'm feeling right now, I just plunged right in.  I signed myself up on the NaNo site and introduced myself as a newbie on the messageboards.  I read all the posts about people who'd been plotting out their novels since last November, and shrugged: it wasn't like I didn't have 14 different books rattling around in my head at any given time, waiting to be written: Of Course I could do this!

And, the amazing thing to me is that I did do it: even though.  Even though the bronchitis and the wedding and the house guests and the sinus infection and the allergic reaction to nothing and not seeing the kiddos in forever and Thanksgiving and the crazy ass tension in my house and the family members who still aren't speaking to each other and the worst flare I've had in a long time.  Even though all of those things happened, I still managed to write a freaking novel.  (Or, if I'm honest, 9/10ths of a novel: but, still 50,000+ words, and that was the goal, so I'm going to claim it as my own precious.)

The fact that I was writing, here and with the book, and all over the internet any time I had a free minute, as a way to avoid my house, my family, my health, my issues, my sadness?  It's not that it didn't occur to me at the time, it's more that it didn't feel like a huge deal while I was doing it.  It gave me an excuse to sit in my room for hours with the door closed, clacking away at the computer without having to worry about who was worrying about me, or how things were not progressing the way I wanted them to outside of the computer. 

And the thing is, even though it's kind of sad that I have so many reasons to want to escape the here and the now, the awesome part comes in where I don't really feel guilty about using it as an escape.  I don't feel like taking those hours to myself hurt anybody, even me, and that's a change in my attitude, that "This is my time, and I can use it to write a book if I want, even if everything else continues to crumble."  Me writing the book isn't selfish or passive-aggressive (although I've probably been both of those things lately, in other ways): it's mine.  And knowing that I deserve things that are just mine, even if it is words on a screen and a huge sense of accomplishment, that's new for me too.  It's something else I'm working on.

Now that the flare is on it's way out (thank the lord and hallelujah: may i never have to take steroids again), I'm going to start claiming that time again, just for me.  I'm going to incorporate writing goals into my daily schedule again (less hectic ones, for sure, but still), and I'm going to keep that feeling of "finally: something I'm capable of" flowing, as much as I can.

Without the words to work on this past week, I've also realized just how sad I am.  I mean, really, having to swallow a lot so you the lump that's sitting there doesn't make me start bawling level of sad.  Heading into Christmas without Grandmother, and actually feeling just how much I miss her is overwhelming.  There's a lot of little things, tiny moments during the day where I just get that needle prick of grief, and all the happy, 'let's gear up for the holiday' spirit I'd been cultivating just ebbs out of the hole it leaves behind, like the air dribbling out of a balloon. 

Just little tiny things, like a book she gave me for Christmas that's part of the decorations I'm putting up.  Or how she didn't set her manger up till the 15th, because 36 years ago, she was setting up her manger when my father called to tell her my brother was being born and she left it there, disassembled, to rush to the hospital.  Or writing out the Christmas card to Uncle Jack, and none for her.  Little bubbles of grief come at me, unexpectedly, and then I remember that she's really gone.  I remember how hard those last months were for all of us, how much I wish it all could have been different. 

And I'm still SO ANGRY.  That's another realization that just snuck up on me, because I don't particularly think of myself as an angry person, but I'm so angry lately.

 At my dad, for being an asshole, then, and for doing things like daring to talk to me, now.  At time, for continuing to pass.  At the world, for not stopping to let me grieve.  At my family, for not realizing that I'm still grieving and that it still hurts, all the time.  At Christmas, for coming without her.  At her, or Nana, or other people, for being dead in the first place & reminding me that everybody I love is going to die, eventually. At all of my pregnant friends, (which is basically 99% of my friends, at this moment) because they are, and I'm not.  At myself, for being angry. And sick. And sore. And stuck. 

And then I'm surprised that I tried to escape into a fantasy land of writing a book?  With all these feels, I'm surprised I haven't started trying to learning German or how to play the harp or something equally intensive - anything at all that does not require FEELING ALL THIS SHIT. 

But, here I am, stuck with all those feelings, making it through, minute by minute.  And trying to feel the happy moments as they come, trying to hoard them and enjoy them and make as many of them as possible to just get me through to the New Year.  Being glad that the steroids make my pain flare, as opposed to my anger, because otherwise, I would've Hulked out by now. 

I'm going to go to a birthday party on Saturday, and get a tree early next week, and work on feeling the happy.  Feeling the everything, just a little bit at a time, if I can manage it.  I hope your December is bringing you the happy, too.