What is it about November?

Every year I commit myself to thirty days and nights of literary abandon, only to find that life generally gets in the way of this mission – a lot! However, we just need to deal with these little interruptions, and continue on chasing our dreams.

NaNoWriMo is an extremely hard thing to commit to and undertake for thirty days. It is basically committing yourself to writing around 2000 words per day to comfortably make it through to the end without too much stress and hassle. But 2000 words are not always easy to come by, especially on days when you just don’t feel like it! The writer really needs to turn off their Internal Editor for the period, because once that Internal Editor gets their slimy little grips on your draft manuscript, then its over. You will end up spending your month editing all the free-writing you have just managed to get down.

My friend Kim likes to send her Internal Editor off on holiday in November. She thinks it does her editor good to go and stay on a remote island somewhere to drink pina coladas.

My internal editor is really in full swing right now though, since I have chosen to undertake my NaNoWriMo duties sightly differently this year. As you would have seen from my last post about Menorca last week, I am going to find it really hard to let this book go. And perhaps that is why I have been holding onto this book for years now, and not having the willpower to deal with it properly. Well… the time has now come where I really just have to let the damn thing go into the great yonder, and fend for itself.

The bottom line is… NaNoWriMo is hard work. Some days are just full of awesomesauce. Some days they aren’t. Other days – life gets in the way, and you need to focus on something else other than your book. This can be extremely frustrating at the time, but when you look back and reflect on it – you know that it was time out for your brain – and that was probably worthwhile.

So what am I musing about this week?

• My house is still a mess, and I’m starting to panick that I’m not going to get it sorted out. I’m seriously feeling the pressure to get it back into a livable state at the moment. God only knows what I’m going to be like when my husband pulls Bumpkin’s future room apart for a bit of a rebuild. I’m going to be useless! All I’ll want to do is clean, when it will be pointless. Bugger this nesting instinct!
• I have started planning writing work for when Bump joins the world. Yes, I know that I shouldn’t be counting my chickens before they hatch, but I really want to utilise the time that I have away from work for a little writing, as well as introducing a newborn into this world of ours. Who knows what will happen. Things may not go to plan – in fact, I’m almost certain they won’t. Bumpkin may be a good sleeper, or it may not be. Whatever the outcome, a little productivity on my side wouldn’t go astray.
• Plans are going into place for who I am going to start submissions of The Mediterranean Source to for publishing. This scares the bejeebers out of me. I have been writing for so long, and I have been in my comfort zone for far too long – that I am not used to the unknown. And the publishing process and rejection process of a full length novel is really outside of my comfort zone. I always hope that I’ll just be ‘one of the lucky ones’ and get accepted straight away. (LOL 🙂 – I know – the writing world simply doesn’t operate that way!) I can always dream though… after all – its dreams that feed writers to do what they do, isn’t it?
• Terribly proud of all the ‘Wrimos out there, who are writing their hearts out this November! I have no idea how many are involved this year, but I seem to be communicating with a heap of them on a daily basis. Good fun.

  

• Something else happened today as well! The release of my friend Melissa Pearl’s book! Yep, I know… nothing like discovering new reading material to sink yourself into. Pick it up from Amazon for just 99 cents. Personally – I can’t wait to read it. This is one I have been waiting for. Big congrats, Mel!

I really did have a lovely weekend spending time with my family, extended family, and my brother and his partner. It was awesome, and I wish that I had more time these days to go and visit them all. However, that just isn’t the way that life has dealt its cards. It just means that I appreciate them all more and more whenever I get the chance to see them and spend time with them.

Okay, I think that’s the lot from me today. I have somehow managed to catch up on three days of NaNoWriMo this morning. Do not as me how – I was already ahead to pick up some of the slack that I was going to incur. Thank god for pre-planning.

Have a great week everyone!! Oh… and Write On ‘Wrimos!