Life's spanners and NaNoWriMo: getting back on the writing horse
It's fair to say I haven't been keeping up with this blog lately, missing weeks, publishing posts I wrote ages ago for fallow times, or republishing old posts. You may recall about six months ago I began a new day job (completely unrelated to writing) after eighteen months of trying to write full-time, and I acknowledged that I'd have less time to write, and it would take time to form new habits and routines. However, I hadn't taken on board that shorter lunchbreaks than in my last job meant I could no longer get to the library at lunchtime to write (I'm working about 100 yards away from my old office), and I hadn't realised how reluctant I'd be to sit at a computer on an evening when I was spending seven hours in front of a screen during the day, rather than the old blend of screen, paper, and time away from a desk. I certainly hadn't anticipated the succession of spanners life was about to chuck in the works.
In the last six months OneMonkey and I have encountered bereavement, health problems in the family involving long periods of waiting, disruption and upset and general stress which looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. Plus we both turned forty and celebrated (dancing alone to our playlist) our twentieth anniversary. There has been much reflection on life and direction, priorities and what's truly important.
For me, writing is definitely one of the important things, but such has been the effect of the past six months I've barely written anything. The writing community on Twitter is another one, but I've largely withdrawn from that partly due to squeezed time, partly because I don't have the energy to be social. Those of you who've been around here a while or know me in real life know I've usually got a book in my hand (or I've just put it down for five minutes to make a cup of tea). I've been reading River of Gods by Ian McDonald for so long I've kind of forgotten what's going on, I'm almost reading each chapter as a stand-alone story that sets off echoes of something else I once read, a long time ago. Clearly these are unusual times.
So, in part this stands as an apology for those of you who enjoy my blog and have been left wanting lately, and those of you who feel I'm neglecting you on Twitter, whose stories I haven't read and whose successes I haven't celebrated. In part (upbeat ending alert...) it serves as encouragement to keep trying - I'm aiming to take part in NaNoWriMo again this year.
Some people see NaNo as a competition, a thing to win, and if you haven't written 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th you've failed. I see it as a cattle prod. There's this writing you want to do, and it's easy to lose it among the day to day. For one month NaNo and the other writers taking part will be saying come on, keep going, just write a bit more. And for one month you can tell yourself you can postpone this other thing or not spend as much time on that, and carve yourself out a writing niche. If you write 500 words during November when you didn't think you'd manage any, then that's an achievement. I certainly won't be aiming at 50,000 words of the semi-rural fantasy, for one thing I reckon I only need another 30,000 to finish the draft, but I'll try and write some, which is more than I've managed in a while.
Best of luck to anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this year, and I'll let you know how I get on. Eventually.