Today is the Middle Of NaNoWriMo, or 25,000 Words

Just My Books and I

Candles from my Dad and Grandma to guide my way

 Writing has changed from when I first began thinking seriously that I could write a book. Well, no, I'd been thinking I could do it since I was a toddler, but getting started, Now That was a different matter.

     I began with a blank notebook and a stack of note cards and a trip to the library to dig into the multi-volumed encyclopedia set of course. This was how I had begun writing all those required papers back in Jr. High, and High School, and at College.

    Now I sit at my computer or tap on my hand ha
eld device and when I need to answer a question I don't have to drive to the library, or even walk across the room to get a stack of notecards, and when I need to know how to describe Mr. Vesuvius in detail, I can read other people's descriptions, or see their paintings, pictures and video.

     When I started my Nano Novel I was already knowing it would be a conversation between two boys, one living in the days leading up to the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii, and one living in the months before the 1980 eruption of Mr. St. Helens. But I am a Nano "Pantster" meaning I don't outline ahead of time, but take my characters and a faint idea and we jump off the Nov. 1st cliff and fly by the seat of our pants toward the goal.

     So I have spent some time writing, alternating with time on Google earth seeing street view and satellite views of the volcanoes. I have watched you-tube video of kids snowshoeing on Mt St Helens and of a determined old man who died because he wouldn't be evacuated since he was a Mile and a huge forest say from the volcano and his mountain wouldn't hurt him.

     Then I have taken every day at work, and grabbed a scratch piece of paper and on every break and lunch time, written or sketched in my novel. So some editing happens there, when I type from a pencilled written piece first, but editing is not supposed to slow down the passionate rush of story this month.  Oh, and neither is blogging.  Oooooopsy daisy.

My sons loved the same picture book I did
Look Out for Pirates
So I made them a poster with their faces

My life has been filled with books, and it started with these, the kids picture books that were always abundant in our house even when we were low on money for almost everything else. On the wall is the quilt from my crib that my grandmother made for me.

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be
I had a Mother who read to me.
  --Strickland GillianOr 

NaNoWriMo 2010

I am one of thousands of writers who make the commitment to write a novel, or at least 50,000 words of one, in the 30 days of November.  i love the concept of doing a high speed, quick and dirty, rough draft, instead of walking around for years telling myself that I am a writer, and I have great ideas for novels, and I WILL write that book starting tomorrow, um, Next Week, er...New year's Day.

 I always knew I was meant to write, I started telling myself stories before I even knew what words were.  I wrote poems and outlined stories on every scrap of paper that came my way and yet, I cheated myself by letting life get in the way.  I only wrote when I had a deadline, an assignment to fill, or when I was writing long Holiday letters to copy and send out en-masse.

 Then I began telling my stories to my kids, until there was a young handicapped boy named Duffy Barkley, already living and breathing in the air with me.  And then I heard about two extremely helpful on-line sites, one being NaNoWriMo, and  they changed my life from, "Someday" to "Do it Now!" Flylady.com,was mainly a site where I was encouraged to give up perfection and just bless my home with 15 minutes at a time.  What can you do in 15 minutes a day?  Create a warm, welcoming home out of Chaos, and write a novel in your spare time. Learn to Finally Love Yourself (FLY) as you do it.  And in bursts of inspiration and the willingness to just jump in where I was, my first dream of a book became a real thing that can be found on-line and in stores and held and hated or loved and has begun a life without me.

 But now, for the third time, I have made this commitment and it is November again, and I went from the surge of enthusiasm, to the, "This is terrible, I QUIT" to the "I can't stop eating, breathing and Dreaming this story," stage.

Halfway through the month, halfway through the 50,000 words, almost all the way out of my mind.  Committed?  Me?  Probably should be.

 So I had to take a break, remember that the world where my husband and children live, is not a fictional one.  I hugged my family, grabbed my camera and went outside, to breath the salty Fall air of the redwood coast and yet

 every step of the way, I felt them following me, reminding me that they can't move until I free them, that they can't find their way home until I do.  Every fictional word I write is a true part of me.  The world they inhabit, no less a part of who I am than the world I live in.

So I go back to my keyboard, back to Guatemala and the Oregon trail and mythical Uhrlin, but I sit down, fortified by chocolate, so the taste and smell can call me home from NaNoWriMo land when the story burns too real and the call of my own life is a faint memory.