NaNoWriMo: What Participating Has Done For Me.

"I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there's a house under there, and I'm pretty sure that I can dig it up if I want. That's how I feel. It's like the stories are already there. What they pay me for is the leap of faith that say's: 'If I sit down and do this, everything will come out OK.'"

-----Stephen King (Quoted in Writer's Digest Jan.2010 issue)

I am seeing the material produced during NaNoWriMo this year as Mr. Kings chimney tops.  Or perhaps misshapen bits of clay in need of deep cuts and rounded corners before it becomes the fully realized work I see in my imaginings.  I do know using NaNo to work out one of my WIP this year has allowed me to see said story a bit clearer.  I should .  I've sure as hell done enough digging.

Happy NaNoWriMo folks.  I hope all your writing goals are met this fine season.

Drive Even When It's in the Wrong Direction

I sit at my old fold top with a million and one varied and drastically tangled thoughts, wrapped not so neat in plethora of to-do lists. And this little bouquet of nasty seems to have created a traffic jam in my head.  A pile up, really.  A bash up where the realities of a young family and a old house and my creative aspirations have collided. Where my muse has left the scene, my fingers are at a stand still (except right now) and my imagination is on a bus to the ER.

GrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRR!

Okay, I will say this.  Maybe I'm not getting the word count I've been aiming for lately, but I'm still getting the NaNoWriMo word meter to climb.  And  maybe I didn't have a plan for my blog today, but I did choose to write something instead of skip out. And look, I came up with some sort of point...I think.

My point is just do it!  Pick something out the pile up in your brain, shake it off and begin it.  It's okay to feel overwhelmed.  It's normal to get bogged down and not feel at your best.  And maybe whatever you choose to begin turns out to be rubbish in the end.  But at least your further outside the pile up in your head and closer to.....something.   And never NEVER!!!!! sit and do nothing.  It's how muscles atrophy and it's how dreams die.

So I leave you with a quote I know I have quoted before on these pages.  A fitting quote from Alice in Wonderland... 

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to

Alice: I don't much care where.

The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.

The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

Should Ya Know My Politics?

I have come to the hard learned conclusion, politics is the great alienater, my fine members of the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

People you thought you knew become unrecognizable and differences you may have just talked through or accepted any other given Sunday, become huge gaping canyons of animosity when tossed into the context of politics.

Now, I like to think of my present and future relationships with my readers to be a friendly, non-alienating one.  Seeing people of different opinion and place in life participating and enjoying my world is a thrill.  I want to keep a atmosphere that nurtures that.  But at the same time I am no fan of apologizing for who I am or what I believe.

How do I stay true to me and yet keep all of you?  To all those conscientious fiction writers who manage a writing blog, how do you find the balance between the writing world and your personal beliefs?  Do you nix all discussions of politics from your realm?  Do you stay neutral when the "politics" hits the fan?  Does having a political opinions hurt a writers fledgling career?

I know this is a personal choice.  I guess I was just wondering if this was ever a dilemma for any of you out in ink and keyboard land?

And thank you to Alex J. Cavanaugh for thinking up this pretty cool support group/ blog hop!

 

Gooooo NaNoWriMo!!!!!

So true, Mr. King.  That lingering moment before you commit that first word to page and begin your writing journey is the scariest.  Our big ole human brain over thinks the process and leaves time for insecurities and fears to creep into the process. 

 

Think of your favorite literary hero's in this moment.  Think of YOUR hero or heroine.  Be brave for them for you are the only one who can bring their world to life and make them immortal.  Yes, you are that powerful once you pick up the writing gauntlet.

 

And so NaNoWriMo begins folks, giving us another chance to create new worlds.  So be brave.  Sit down.  Start!  And good luck.