Writing a novel in a month after a year of having written virtually nothing (does my very convoluted and personal journal writing count? I’m gonna go with “no” on this one) is like trying to run a marathon right after getting a cast off your leg: it’s not just stupid it’s also impossible.
This would have been my junior year of NaNoWriMo but the reality is that with the year I’ve had and the one and only idea I have I just don’t have the energy to even try (honestly: I love my main character but having to spend a month looking at the world through the eyes of a sucidial cop who is dealing with the death of her father and with coming out…the idea just kinda depresses me).
The only thing I do know at this point is that I need to start writing again, and writing things that aren’t so private and focused on the details of my life. Now, I’m not one for believing in this “the universe will provide” theory of life – after all, often what the universe provides is a big shit sandwich and you in a position to do nothing but take a bite – but in this particular case I’ve been provided with the love and powers of observation of another (thank you Carrie! and credit to fussy.org for the idea) and pointed at a viable alternative: NaBloPoMo (that’s National Blog Posting Month to you).
The idea is simple, and fairly similar to NaNoWriMo: write, just write for an entire month. Pledge to post a blog entry every day in the month of November.
Poetry, prose, random bitching about politics, movie reviews, what have you (I don’t think quote of the day counts since, really, that’s not something I wrote)…just something for 30 days.
I’m going to take that one step further: I’m going to try to use my 30 days to refocus outside, to try to reconnect with the world at large, or at least try to relate the things I’m thinking and feeling back to a larger whole.
So…we’ll see how the experiment goes. Now, I’m gonna go off and do some stretching. After all, I wouldn’t want to strain a neuron or anything.