A novel holiday contribution...

Well, seeing as you haven't heard from me for over a month, you can bet it's safe to say that NaNoWriMo was a complete and utter failure. I got nowhere near the designated 50,000 words and got too wrapped up in other things to allow myself to care much. Am I disappointed in myself? Perhaps a little. I mean, when you think about it, it's not THAT hard to write that much in 30 days. One of my friends who participated surpassed the goal with a whopping 60,000-plus words. It's not like a marathon where you can only do it if you've trained for it. Anyone can sit down and write that much at any time they want to. So to not even get close to accomplishing such an achievable goal did do a bit of a number on my self-respect and confidence.

Although I know it wasn't because I COULDN'T write that much. It was because I chose not to. I chose to believe other things were more important. And if faced with that same decision today, I'd make it again. Some things are more important than NaNoWriMo. Another month, another year would have been better for me, would have had less life-altering changes to combat with. But that goes back to the whole premise of NaNoWriMo and the reason people do it in the first place. I learned that this year and I will try to keep that in perspective next year.

And in that respect, NaNoWriMo wasn't a failure at all. I am so glad I at least attempted it and stuck with it for two weeks. I learned so much about myself and my writing. I learned to pay attention to the tiniest details and to always keep the reader in mind. It got me really excited for the memoir, actually, though my actions may suggest otherwise. And though I rarely designated my writing as more important than other chores, I always deemed it significant enough to include in the schedule. I never thought to myself, "I shouldn't be writing" or "I shouldn't bother writing." In fact, I often thought, "I should be writing," or, "I WISH I was writing. " The fact that I want to write and want to make time for writing gives me hope that I will see this project through to the end.

Therefore, I have decided that January is going to be my makeup NaNoWriMo. I'm gonna get out the tens of thousands of words I didn't write in November and achieve enough words to be able to call myself a novelist. I feel like I can't begin to work on the editing and the fine-tuning of the novel until I get it all out on the page, and really, this being a memoir, I should get it all down before I find myself forgetting anything. So I'm excited to get that finished and follow through with what I should have completed a month ago.

However, I do have another distraction tempting me away from my own memoir. This holiday, when we were all gathered at my mother's, she handed me a finished copy of HER memoir about her mother's death. I've been dying to read it since I even knew such a thing existed, but I didn't want to bug her to finish it or to show me because that's something she had to figure out on her own and something I didn't want to feel rushed. But as part of our Christmas gift, she gave each my brother and me a copy. You should have seen the beaming smiles on our faces. I was so proud of her, and I think she was really proud of herself.

We had always talked about (perhaps only joked) about how I could edit it for her when she finally did finish it. But she didn't seem too keen on the idea now that it was written. "Oh, Jen, I think you'll be disappointed when you read it," she said.
"But let's just say I want to change some things..."
"I didn't write this for publishing," she said.

But I could barely help myself. Only reading the first page, completely oblivious to the conversation in the living room, I found myself making all kind of mental notes on how to make it better. Not saying that it was bad. Goodness, no, that's not the case. I haven't read it yet, but I know before looking that, between her and me, we could make that into something really fantastic. She's got the story and I've got the creative flair. And really, what more do you need to write a smashing book? Hell, some people on the Best Sellers list don't have either of those things.

Really, though, I'm excited to read it, to know more about my grandmother, my family, and heritage, myself. And maybe I'll find some answers to questions I'm having about my own book.

Being okay with crap...

Well, we're five days into NaNoWriMo, and I only have 4,000 words written so far, 8,000 words away from what my goal is for Sunday. In my defense, it's been a rough week.

We started it in Florida where we were hoping to see the shuttle "Discovery" blast off into space. Discovery was having a lot of trouble the week before, little mishaps that kept popping up, but NASA engineers were working day and night to get her all patched up for her big ride. Well, the day before we were supposed to leave, NASA announced the launch would be delayed a day. We hurriedly changed our flights, added another night onto our hotel stay, and rearranged all our vacation plans. A friend who was supposed to come with us, though, backed out because he couldn't afford a new flight and an extra day off of work. Such is the businesses of space travel spectating. It's a risk you have to be willing to take, and he wasn't.

So he got a refund on his Saturday plane ticket while Chris and I cashed ours in, but just after landing on the tarmac in sunny Orlando and turning on our cell phones the minute the pilot said it was okay, Chris discovered Discovery was pushed back another day, another day we ourselves could not afford to stay. In other words, we had a black cloud following us around the whole four days we were down there. Don't get me wrong, it was a great trip. It was 85 degrees, 35 degrees warmed than we were accustomed to in chilly Michigan, and we still got to see plenty of awesome things, like the shuttle actually sitting on the launch pad. However, since we did things that were related to NASA and the shuttle launch, our emotions were confused. We would see something really interesting and astounding, and we were elated, and then it would remind us of the shuttle launch, and we were depressed. There was so much sorrow in our smiles. It was the epitome of bittersweet.

I had planned on having a lot of time to write on day one and day two, because shuttle launches are all about hurrying up and then having to wait, so with all the down time we would have on the causeway waiting for the countdown on Monday and of course the airplane ride home on Tuesday, I figured I'd have plenty of opportunity to spit out a couple thousand words at least. But then our plans changed, I didn't have quite so much free time, and the little bit I did attempt to write I thought was terrible, and the trip had already been depressing enough.

But I still had my original battle plan of writing for two hours every day after work before Chris got home. Only when I returned to work on Wednesday, all hell had broken loose while I was gone, and my boss was practically begging me to do overtime. Now everyone loves a little cash in their pocket, but when's a girl supposed to find time to write? And of course every evening is spent renovating our house, so I was starting to feel up a crick without a paddle.

One of these nights, after a minor nervous breakdown, I told Chris I couldn't spend much time at the house because I needed to write if I was gonna take this pledge to NaNoWriMo seriously. (Haha it's hard to talk seriously about something called NaNoWriMo, but I digress) So I got myself a cup of tea and a slice of cake and I sat down at my computer and got serious.

Only everything I wrote was crap. Crap, crap, crap. I felt like I was in third grade again, writing pages of run-on sentences and boring plot lines strung together with "and thens."

In fact, overall, it hasn't been finding the time that's been the problem this week. You can always find the time if you look hard enough. It's getting motivated to face my monitor when I know all that's coming out is crap.

I argued with myself a lot this week, asking myself if it was worth it to spend so much time if I would have to rewrite my entire end product, and if I should bother wasting so many bad words when I could be writing better (though fewer) words. But I keep trying to remind myself that it's about words in general, good and bad, and just getting some on the page, which is a task that seemed to be eluding me before this month started. And yes, I'm writing a lot of stuff that will end up getting crossed out with the most brilliant red pen I own, but there's also little gems here and there, ideas I hadn't thought to include before, metaphors I hadn't pondered before, poetry I didn't know I was capable of before. That alone, I think, is the reason so many people believe in NoNaWriMo and want to be a part of it. I just have to keep reminding myself.

Luckily, I've got help. At least two friends on my facebook are "suffering" (though self-imposed) with me, both veteran writers who love to root this rookie on. They reassured me that writing crap is okay and even they, with their more advanced writing level, are still writing their share of crap and then some. One friend doesn't even bother looking back at anything he's written. In fact, he's got a writing program that only lets him see the last hundred words he's typed, which I think is friggin' genius. I find myself writing for a good fifteen minutes, hitting a wall for a moment, and then checking my word totals, only to find they've increased by a mere hundred or so. The other encourages me to not stop writing for anything, and to switch gears to a different plot line or character if I feel myself slowing down. Great advice from both and great encouragement!

But to be honest, the most helpful thing they told me was that they were writing crap, too. It reminds me I'm not alone.

So I will trudge on. Hopefully I can find some time this weekend between laying hardwood floors in our house to catch up on those 8,000 words. If it's one thing I've learned so far, it's that getting behind by even a day can really hurt your numbers, and after all, this really is all about the numbers (since it's certainly not about good writing). I guess I need to take Tod up on his offer and have a POWER WEEKEND!

We are all just prisoners here of our own device...

I don't know how people who work from home do it. I had an afternoon all scheduled for writing and drinking champagne on my deck, but in the allotted hour I gave myself, I ended up hanging clothes up (I hadn't anything to wear that was already in my closet), drying my hair (which seemed to be drying faster than normal, and if I let it air dry, I would look ridiculous and I had plans that evening), cleaning off the patio furniture (because I couldn't write on a table covered in potting soil), moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer (because if I didn't do it right then and there, I would certainly forget it altogether), and cleaning off the champagne glasses (because we usually never drink champagne, so they had a good year's worth of dust on them) that by the time I was sitting down to write, I had a mere 20 minutes left, and then I went ahead and wasted five more minutes whining about it here.

And yet here I am with whatever little time I have left because it's about damn time I start sticking to my guns and actually do things I say I'm going to, which I've never been too good at doing in the past. Thus, the reason I've been absent so long. There hasn't been anything worth writing about--well, of course there is always SOMETHING to write about, but as far as the status of my writing or new things I've been learning, new leaps I've taken, there simply haven't been any.

Failure, of course, is something worth writing about and something I'm getting to be an expert at for certain. However, I'm not particularly fond of writing about my failures, mostly because my failures tend to be self-inflicted. I'm perfectly aware that if I don't write, it's simply because I haven't taken the time. There is no one to blame but myself. As the Eagles might say, I'm a prisoner of my own device, stuck in a continual Hotel California not even trying to find a way out. I can't complain about my life not going the way I want because I am capable of changing it. What a powerful statement. I am capable of changing my life. I am capable. I choose not to.

And to write about my failures would feel like I was only complaining when I have no right in which to complain. Thus, I have remained quiet, not facing my life or my failures, watching time tick by, nearly three months into the project and still the same ten pages to show for it.

If it's one good thing I can say about the past month, it's that I've forced myself to go back to hip-hop dance class. At least I'm doing some extra-circular activity that gets me out of the house and gets me thinking about what I really want out of life. Believe it or not, dance classes are a great place to think, or at least they are for me. It seems like I would be too distracted with counting and memorizing move sequences and trying not to look like the white girl ironing board that I am compared to my smooth, sexy instructor who probably came out of the womb popping and locking.

But in a dance studio, I spend my entire time staring into a mirror, realizing all the flaws and imperfections, every move that is correct and every move that is incorrect, my facial expressions when I miss a move, when I get a move right, the way I feel the music and the movements. It's no internet blog that I can hide from and avoid for a whole month. Everything is laid out in front of me; all the problems that I have to fix are unrelentingly reflected back at me. And most of the time, I'm scared shitless that my classmates or Mr. Smooth Sexy Instructor are watching me, judging every one of my mistakes, but then I realize it's just me and the mirror. Everyone is focusing on themselves, finding the errors within themselves and attempting to repair them each time the music restarts.

I suppose that's what makes it hard about trying to make friends in a dance class. Sure, there are times where we're all joking about a move or helping each other out with some sequence, but for the majority of the class, we are each in our little bubble, alone with the music and the mirror. I've been meaning to stay a little later after class, try to talk Mr. Smooth Sexy Instructor about any other dance opportunity he may know of for 20-something ex-baton-twirlers or find out how the other girls in the class spend their free time. But I guess I find it exposing enough that these people see me struggle with moves and constantly misstep. I guess by the end of class, I'm just ready to get back to my safe cocoon that is my car and my normal boring life.

Which is a shame, really. I have found in the past that the bond shared between people with the same passion is the strongest bond of them all. I often think fondly of a specific moment in my past, standing around a piano late at night at Adrian College when most people are back in their rooms, surrounded by strangers who quickly became family at a summer camp, my dear friend playing a song from Les Mis his fingers have memorized and all of us singing along casually, poking at each other and laughing all the while. It's a kind of camaraderie you only understand if you've had it before. And even just standing around a piano singing warm-ups or a song everyone knows, what fun we all had. It was all we wanted or needed in that moment. It may sound silly, but I miss standing around a piano with people like me.

Sometimes I think all of this would be easier if I had chosen to hang around people who had the same life goals and passions as I do.

It all goes back to what John said that first night I attended Writing Club. He said writing is a lonely business. And it is. I keep fooling myself into believing that I can write and NOT be lonely, that I can spend time with my husband, our families, our friends, and STILL write. But that's not the case, not all the time anyhow. To achieve my dreams, I need to instill discipline in my life and I have to be willing to sacrifice, even if sacrifice means being alone, even if only for a temporary time. And I guess I haven't been willing to sacrifice yet. It's funny, really. Writing is what I really want to do, but I'm not willing to sacrifice what's necessary to get it. I suppose that's something I'll have to come to terms with.

A funny ending to a rather pensive entry: My husband came home and gave me a kiss hello, quickly followed by a, "Have you been drinking?!"

"Just a glass of champagne," I batted my eyes innocently.
"It's not even 5pm!"
"It was just one glass!"
"Yeah, right."
And then giggles ensued, which did not help plead my case in the least.