That Time Of Year, Again

Last November, I unofficially tried to do the NaNoWriMo with the Black Dress piece. In addition to it being unofficial (i.e. I didn't register) there were other factors which made the whole thing not count, in my opinion. It was non-fiction, it was a piece on which I had begun work in the spring of 2005, and it had already morphed into a multimedia project by that point. Unofficial though it may have been, I now have many photos (I have quite a few I haven't edited yet, so let's just say I have around 100) and 41,159 words for the Black Dress project (really, come visit the blog, if you leave comments I may be encouraged to upload more photos and text as a means of procrastination) and I wrote another piece (this one fictional) which I had briefly considered interweaving with the story about the black dresses (though I have since changed my mind about that) which has a word count of 13,863. So last year's NaNoWriMo gave me two unfinished pieces (though not everything was written last November) which desperately need to be rewritten and edited. But finishing can be so hard. In fact, for me, finishing is damn near impossible. Even if I didn't have a toddler, even if I had time, I am pretty sure finishing would be difficult. For example, I wrote a play in the spring of 2001. Had a few readings. Got ideas. Did a complete rewrite. Had another reading, got some criticism which was not terribly constructive and decided I shouldn't be writing plays. Or rather, I decided to wait until I was inspired. And here we are, five years later, the play is nowhere closer to being worked on than it was back before motherhood took over my life. Anyway, my point is that writing 50,000 words isn't really my problem, it is knowing what to do with the words once they are written.

So we are days away from another November and another NaNoWriMo.

I tell myself that it would be different if I registered and made it official this time around. I am telling myself that I can totally write 1,500 words a day even though, lately, I can't even seem to find the motivation to write on this blog. It isn't like I don't have ideas. I have too many ideas and, often, can't seem to make them all fit. I remind myself that it doesn't have to be linear or make sense, at least, not to anyone else. I am telling myself that these 50,000 words will be different.

Time is a bit of a concern. My mother recently suggested that I would make myself a lot less miserable if I put my acting and literary ambitions on hold until Julian starts school. She pointed out that this time is fleeting and, really, I am just stressing myself out too much. Of course she is right, but I know that I will do this anyway and I will still time from somewhere in order to do it. Then I remember that we are going out of town the first weekend in November. That is a few days gone right there. Julian's birthday is the 18th and I have to plan the party. And then there is Thanksgiving.

Who decided November was a great month to write a novel?