For the past two years I’ve written a novel for National Novel Writing Month. It was a welcome distraction & radical departure from my life.
It also disciplined me to write 50,000 words in 30 days, which seemed really daunting at first but was actually doable.
I’m glad I did NanoWriMo again this year. Even if my novels don’t see the light of day, it’s good to be writing & for it to be fun. This year’s effort I just finished. My program had more words than NanoWriMo’s official validator, so I had a bit of catching up to do, but not by much. I know this one will need work too, but I’m glad it’s done.
Last night I hit 25,036 words! I consider this as pretty amazing for me considering how off my attention has been at points & how crummy I felt the first part of the month.
I’m still a bit behind, but not terribly. I still need less than 1800 words a day to finish on time. I’ve been doing over that pretty consistently or if I’ve fallen a little short, I’ve been averaging the new daily average or better which is around 1700 words.
I left social media recently due to some shaming & bullying. It was just too negative overall lately. Even with articles that I used to enjoy reading & some pages it just seemed there was a negative feel to it & that any post or article anyone bothered to put up, someone had an issue with.
It wasn’t just the election, but that definitely made it worse.
Today is Halloween. Tomorrow I will have been listed for 8 months. Next Monday, I have my next check-up.
Then on the 9th, I’ll be in Baltimore to discuss dual listing with John Hopkins.
Well, I accomplished my goal yesterday. I finished something I had never undertaken before, a novel. At 50,000 words it’s probably more like a novella, but it’s the basis of something good. I do know that.
I do have a question I’d like to pose to some of my transplant friends, of whatever organ or whatever status. I know that many transplant recipients feel compelled to write their donor families, yet how many have felt the urge to write a farewell note to their original organ(s)?
For the past 8 years or so, I really have been wanting to write on a regular basis. Although, I’ve never felt right about rigidly disciplining myself to do so because when I have it comes off contrived. Charles Bukowski did it on a regular basis through poetry, novels, & other works. It was more inspired than not (even he admits it). But for me, it always just seemed to come when it felt like it; even when I would try otherwise to coax it out, until very recently. Feels like lately a day without blogging seems an incomplete day…
AS I LIVE & BREATHE 