Well, that was interesting. I never saw any real point in NaNoWriMo for professional writers. I could see advantages for newbies and learners and amateurs (and anybody who has read my articles and posts knows that I see nothing slighting about being an amateur writer—most writers are and its no more trivial than being an amateur painter or golfer). But not for me… Im probably writing stuff that month anyway. But a funny thing happened. I came down with some weird chronic ills, then had open heart surgery on top of that. And suddenly theres this doubt if Im even a writer at all. I hadnt written a novel since my surgery. My attempts were frustrating and, frankly, terrifying. If Im not a writer—and if fact, if Im not a really fine writer, enough above the pack to get paid for it and impress people—then Im pretty much nothing and my life is a sick joke. So I decided to do the NaNo thing and see what I could accomplish. I set an easy task; novelizing a screenplay treatement, so the story was already there. Just fill it out with, you know… writing. Halfway through it hit me that it was kind of a waste of time as far as product. I chose a sort of Drew Barrymore, Legally Blonde-type story, which would make a nice film of that kind, but is hardly the sort of novel people snap up to read. And it would be shorter than 50,000 words, as many novels are in the eBook age. No problem… figured Id add on chapters at the end, as in published versions—come-ons for the other two books in the series. But, hey, baby steps. Most of it is pretty mechanical. But two weeks ago I suddenly hit a little bit of the powerband Im used to. It started to sing a little and Id find myself smiling after I typed a line. Then I spent two days at the hospital and have felt like crap since, and am back to being an aphasic moron again. Sucks, huh? On the other hand, I did produce a novel. And will publish it (mostly because its got a really cute cover). But the results were far from solid or pleasing. Frankly, I still dont know if Im washed-up for good, or just getting by a rough patch on the way to roaring back. Ive got a lot of projects on the back burners that Id like to put out there. But Im still jittering around, wondering if its all over. At this point, I dont really have a life other than writing. Without out, nothing makes any sense at all. So well see. And NaNoWritMo was an interesting experiment. Its a cool program. Glad I took part.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 01:30:27 +0000
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