Well, but of course, I have to do both…

So here’s my first of November blog about my first of November writing for Nanowrimo…

It seems like November is a good time of year for focused writing. Perhaps it’s the gloom setting in, the threat of winter, the darkening skies, the reversal of daylight saving time. It feels (in the Northern hemisphere) like it’s time for hunkering down, curling up with a pot of tea, and thrashing out some words. Any words. Good words, powerful words, words that prefer to lie flat, words that want to end in -ly no matter how you try.

One wonders, sometimes, how much utter dreck is created in the urge to complete tasks. I know, for example, that my Nanowrimo stuff tonight will be  a wasteland of first draftiness. Most of it will be tossed onto the floor and crushed with extreme prejudice, as they say, whoever THEY are. This blog entry is no doubt going to be rather dreary as well, I can already tell.

I’ve spent the day in training for leading the Stanford University course (the local iteration) on Chronic Disease Self-Management, you see. A whole day reviewing how to set goals and how to be physically active. A whole day sitting in a room talking about managing a chronic disease when all of us had one and really needed to move/lie down/sleep/exercise. We have three more days like this coming, and the leaders cheerfully tell us, “Oh, Day 3 is the WORST. It’s all lectures and you’ll have trouble staying awake.”

So, ya gotta wonder, who put together the course in this way? My chronic disease is demanding some care and feeding. Already.

My only hope is that the extra hour of sleep on Sunday will bail me out and keep me from saying something I shouldn’t. I have a tendency to lose my inner monologue when tired. Things that I thought I was saying in my head come right out of my mouth and lie there like toads of the poisonous variety.

But I’m determined to keep writing despite this, to put in my time to get those 2000 words done a day for Nanowrimo and here. Why? Well, I like a challenge. I hate to be beat. And I know I will need to write after talking all day. My brain will need emptying.

So, off I go, tra la, to empty my mind into my novel. Maybe there’ll be some gold among the dross. Good luck fellow November writers!

PS: for those who want to do editing after Nanowrimo, I just found a great editing site if you are feeling wealthy after all the house spent typing and not eating or entertaining or going out… Autocrit editing wizard. You can try out 500 word segments a day for free. It catches all your over-used words, clichés, adverbs, etc. Worth a look. I might just invest myself. Apparently it finds the word “just” so you can take it out…