Friday, November 1, 2013

This Pokey Puppy Might Write

I thought I'd echo my girls post this morning.

It's the first day of the WriMo.

To a lot of you, that's either meaningless or insane.

The short and dirty of it is that in a month, this month of 30 days, myself and thousands of other insane people will write a draft of a novel with a goal of 50,000 words or more.

A week ago I started with a little Internet research. A couple of plot line worksheets came off my printer. A character development tool got saved to my google drive. I started taking those vague ideas lodged in conversations and dreams and jotting them down on scraps of paper.

I let my mind wander around in these thoughts.

Yesterday I met with a friend and talked writing.

I forgot how a good a thing that can be.

I get caught in the idea that writing happens in a vacuum because I know that the biggest part of writing is sitting down, alone, and getting it done. I forgot in that oneness, the value of someone else who "gets it" and the motivator and perspective changer that could be.

I went to bed last night feeling OK about things. Comfortable that I had a good enough set of ideas to get this novel rolling.

Then I woke up to a Monday morning on Friday. There was chaos and small kids having their Halloween candy hangovers. There were schedule bumps and forgotten things suddenly remembered. My writing time got smaller and smaller, and as I sit here writing this post, smaller still.

But the writing here is significant. It helps to clear the clutter from the front of my mind, so that I can sink into the story and let go into those words.

The first 200 or so words are down. This years sound track is started. The first notes have already been crossed off and changed in another color of ink.

My friend encouraged me this morning, in our mutual procrastination, "go on, go write, we have stories to tell".

She's right you know, on all fronts. We all have stories to tell. Maybe your story isn't words on a page. Maybe your story is baked goods delivered or checks written or hands held.

That never makes it less.

Go tell your story. And if you happen to find my plot line or a character or two, send them my way please.

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