I'm a leaf on the Wind...

I was talking to a NaNo friend of mine the other day & the conversation went from comparative progress to a screeching halt.

‘Wait...’ she said, ‘you never finished before? I just thought it was the story running out before the word count got where it was supposed to go.’

Nope, I haven't. *hangs head, abashed* My name is Angela, and I was a four time NaNo loser.

In previous years, I had a pretty hefty familial commitment in Nov every year. I tried writing around it, but could never quite manage to push through the 'Omigawd, what am I doing?!? This sucks!!' phase to get to the good bits. I always figured 'eh, it's just as well, I’m tired from - & have - to do tomorrow & this isn't any good...'. I got frustrated & let my outside obligations give me an out.

I can't do that this year. Lol, for one, the 'obligation' in question is no longer a factor. And for another, this is an idea that's been rattling around my head for a few years now. I really think it's time.

And now, you all sit back & go 'Omg & -this- is the chick that's been giving -me- advice?!?!?'

I know. Sorry.

My sister was in the Army & she had been stationed in Germany, then was deployed to Iraq & later to Afghanistan. I only got to see her once a year & as she loves fall & Thanksgiving, she'd take leave in Nov. I adored seeing her (she is, afterall, my favorite person in the world) but between cleaning, shopping & phone calls before, then making dinners or going to other people's who made her dinner, usually having at least one party, having her friends all show up along with every relative in three counties, lol it was tough. Plus, occasionally, I liked trying to actually get her all to myself for five minutes. I loved having her home, but it ate up a lotta time & energy.

Now she's out. She got out last fall cuz she was pregnant with my niece, who was born this spring. She & the baby are currently waiting for my brother in law to get back from his latest deployment. Besides missing him & being a li'l far from home (she's in Kansas, most of our family's in Illinois) she's good.

Previously, all the things I felt I needed to do in November always took precedence to what I wanted to do, what was important to me. This is a terrible habit & I know *points to the audience* I am not the only one with this affliction. Everything always seemed more important because it was important to somebody else. My ‘stupid stuff’ could always wait, even if it was things I loved, because other people in my life didn’t attach any significance to them. ‘Oh, you’re just doing –‘, where – was ever so much less important than other things. I was just wasting my time anyway. I’d hear all of that & more from people around me & after long enough, from myself.

I really need to quit that. We all do.

We all need to quit letting the rest of the word dictate our priorities, our passions. Yes, of course there are certain practical matters for most people; gotta feed the kids, keep the lights on, etc. But, there has to be ways to serve both things. You shouldn’t have to lose yourself for the sake of practical expediency or other people’s opinions of what you ought to be doing instead. You shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t. I’ve known far too many people that’ve done just that & I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being so beholden to other people’s vision of where they think I should be that I do nothing but second guess where I want to be, if I think on it at all.

Last year, NaNo founder Chris Baty suggested an experiment, a dare of sorts. He proposed that we should have a Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things Together. The idea was to take something you’ve always wanted to do/try/finish but let fear hold you back from & just do it. It could be anything, learn a language, get a new job, finish school, remember to return emails….lol, whatever you wanted.

If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison

I like this idea. It appeals to the gleaming, leonine part of me that yells ‘I AM AWESOME!’ but gets drowned out by all the things heaped up it that sneer & reply ‘you’re kidding, right?’ Well, that’s my Big, Scary Fun Thing; I’m gonna try like hell to ignore that voice from now on. I want to start listening to my own.

Leap, and the net will appear. – Geothe

‘What,’ you may ask, ‘does this have to do with the price of Jumja on Bajor?! Isn’t this supposed to be about writing?’ It is, yes. Therein lays the point. When I set harsh practicality & anyone else’s opinions aside & just listen to what draws me, I think it’s this. I’ve written more than 20,000 words on a single piece & while not Atlas Shrugged length prose by any means, I want to see how it ends.

I haven’t had it long, but this blog has had more frequent & longer posts than any other blog/journal or diary I’ve ever tried keeping…probably put together.

And while my conditioned, doubting responses wants to remind me that I’ve never finished a novel, I say ‘yes, but I keep coming back to try!’ Lack of completion doesn’t mean I haven’t learned things in the years I’ve failed. I keep getting asked advice on writing this year, I keep answering with some pretty solid ideas & I keep hearing how my suggestions have helped. I must be learning something!

The conditioned bit says “all” you write is “stupid game stuff”. Ok, I’ll grant you, most of my writing has been game related, but stupid? Not so much. Currently, I write for four characters out of two different universes with a minimum of around 2.000 words a week, & usually it’s more. Prior to that, I’ve been writing for close to six years now covering about 30 different main chars & a multitude of background chars on everything from modern day superheroes to far flung future covert op agents to mythic world princesses. I’ve written different jobs, social classes, religions, genders & species! I’ve been doing this initially at a couple posts a week to now it’s practically a nightly occurrence.

But, more to the point than the ‘what’ is ‘why’. Even when I fail, and some of them have been truly spectacular failures that barely even sucked in fresh oxygen before keeling, I keep going back. I keep throwing my mind against the vacant expanse of the page to see what sticks. I love when a char takes off enough on their own that they do things you never saw coming & I love writing something that makes me laugh or cry, or hearing that someone reading it laughed or cried. I love the challenge of trying to get inside this person’s head to see what makes them tick. I keep trying on new worlds & new people. Some fit, others don’t, but I keep going, keep plumbing the depths of my oldest char (she’s 3 ½ now) &looking for the next new thing to flex my literary muscles on & shouldn’t that say enough?

I’m by no means saying that I’ll be the next JK Rowling by next NaNo, but merely that I’ll be here next NaNo, and the next. And I’ll keep writing here & trying to write it better as long as I can muster up new ideas, new chars, new problems, new advice & new reads for you. And I’ll keep writing my novel, it’s still a long way to 50k & the book & I have a date with a red pen in December. Who knows, maybe some time I can post a link to where it’s published, or to a site where I’ve gotten printed. I’d like that, like to be able to point to a book in a store or an article somewhere & go “see that? That’s mine. I wrote that.”

So that’s my other Big, Fun, Scary Thing; to not give up & to keep getting better. So I’m currently unpublished & unpaid, so what?.

My name’s Angela & I am a writer.

"I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar" - Wash, Serenity