Yes, my wonderful readers, it’s that time of year again…
Yes, November is almost upon us, which means National Novel Writing Month! And I am nowhere near ready.
I at least have a plan. I’m rewriting an old novel entirely, the novel that earned me my first NaNoWriMo win – previously known as Love, Lies, and Sand, it’s been renamed as Caught Between and so far I have three chapters planned out. Three. By this point when I’d originally written Love, Lies, and Sand/Caught Between, back in 2010, I’d outlined maybe ten chapters and was nearly vibrating with the need to write. This story needed to come out, and oh, when I started writing I couldn’t stop. I was so incredibly excited. And things weren’t too terribly different then – grad school, working, etc. So why am I so far behind this year?
It might be because I’ve had at least two 10-hour days a week at work for most of this month. It might be due to homework and that crazy midterm for Representation and Organization that was due last week, that made me want to bang my head on the wall because I couldn’t formulate good answers to ANY of the questions, let alone three of them. It could also probably be that I’m struggling with depression, too. Who knows. What I do know, however, is that come Friday night, I’ll be here, at my computer desk, a bowl of leftover Halloween candy by my side and a mug of coffee fueling my creativity, ready to write when midnight strikes and it’s officially November. I’ve got my NaNoWriMo scrabble tile necklace ready. I’m going to crank out a new “Novelist at Work” sign for my tablet probably today or tomorrow. I’ve at least got three chapters outlined. I’ve got a bunch of print quota on the campus printers I can waste on printing out the old novel, so I can tear it apart and write it anew, hopefully well enough so that I can feel comfortable sharing this novel with the world. I am going to hit 50 thousand words. I may even surpass 75k, the amount of words that Love, Lies, and Sand/Caught Between hit when I’d finished it originally. I might even hit 100 thousand words. How amazing would that be?
I can do this. Even though I’m not ready at all.