Archive for November, 2010
Well, I did it. In the month of November, I wrote 50,392 words. That was the NaNoWriMo challenge to write a novel, in my case my next memoir, over the thirty days of November. It’s an accomplishment. No doubt about it. It’s like finishing a marathon. I crossed the finish line.
But I’m not patting myself on the back. I haven’t made a place on my shelves for the certificate of completion. I’m not sitting back and putting my feet on the desk waiting for the agents and publishers to come a knockin’. Why not? Because one of the lessons I’ve learned since I started writing twenty years ago is agents and publishers never come a knockin’ no matter how grammatically correct and compelling your (my) query letters are. And it takes more than just writing to create a full length manuscript. There’s luck. There’s rewriting. There’s working on your craft…
Here are some of the things I’ve learned during the NaNoWriMo experience:
- I can write without that damned editor sitting on my shoulder. There is something quite free about not reading and re-reading, worrying and fretting about every word. I know I do this especially when I’m trying to avoid something or when I feel like I couldn’t go deep if I had a gun to my head. With NaNoWriMo, I had a gun to my head.
- I wrote from my gut. I didn’t worry about grammar. I didn’t worry about the story, conflict, characterization. For a month, I didn’t worry at all, I just wrote.
- I’m sure (sort of) that there are some real nuggets, gems waiting to be polished, in what I wrote. The odds are in my favor with writing so many words, right?
- My memoir is about trying to blend my family, and by writing it, I learned how hard the journey has been. I have juggled three very different children with very different needs and tried like hell to be the “perfect” mom. It’s been like juggling a saw, a machete, and a flame thrower (metaphors for my juggling not really how I see my kids). This perfect juggling act was born out of good old fashioned guilt. I’d divorced Molly and Kelly’s dad, remarried, and had Jack. I felt like I had to be everything to the girls, and this meant doing a frantic tap dance for the last ten years. And since Jack wasn’t having all my attention heaped on the girls, he stomped and yelled and carried on until I dropped one of the sharp instruments and paid attention.
- I learned about paying attention, whether I was writing about Molly’s ruptured appendix and paying attention to my crumbling marriage or paying attention to Kelly who was getting lost as the middle child between Molly graduating from high school and being the first to leave home and Jack trying to stay out of juvi as a kindergartner.
- I can let things go. I didn’t do the laundry, clean bathrooms, write on my blog or emails as much as I had been, or return phone calls (I’m sorry about that) during the month of November. Instead I focused. Focused. This is a word, action, that I’d like to take with me into the next months. Writing almost two thousand words every day was Zen. And I need more Zen and focus in my life.
I know what comes next. Maybe that’s why there is sense of melancholy in this triumph. I know that the real work begins now. Although I need to put the memoir away for a week or so. I need to breathe. Introduce myself to my family again. And, oh, yeah, remember the whole agents and publishers a knockin’ thing I mentioned above, I’ve got another memoir that I need to get together so I can sit by my phone and computer just a waitin’ for an agent to call and say, “I love your memoir. I love your story. I love the voice.” I’m waiting…
I’m a blessed person. I have my health. My kids and husband are healthy, too. I’m the luckiest woman on earth to have the kind of family and friends I have. I’m incredibly thankful for these blessings and thank God, Buddha, the universe, life all the time. However, on the eve of Thanksgiving I’ve decided to dig deeper for the smaller blessings. Here’s what I’m thankful for:
- Commercial free Pandora
- This moment
- Diet Coke
- Slippers
- The sound of rain on a metal roof
- NaNoWriMo and the opportunity to write a memoir in a month
- Taos Summer Writers’ Conference and the writers I’ve met there, including Lisa Tucker, Debra Monroe, Rob Wilder and Minrose Gwin
- My virtual life through my blog and the friends I’ve met along the way
- CrossFit East County
- Staying in my pajamas past nine in the morning
- A job…that I love
- Hootie and the Blowfish and Darius Rucker
- Second chances
- Red wine
- The relationship I have with the men in my life
- The relationship I have with myself
- A clean house particularly a clean bathroom
- Spell check
- The privilege of flying (or not) and TSA wanting to keep us safe with full body scanners and pat downs…get over it.
- The ability to voice my opinion
- Dental and medical insurance
- Purple
- Animal print
- A good laugh or cry
- Time
- Denim
- Reading to Jack at night
- Turquoise and silver jewelry
- Books I can hold in my hands
- Flushing toilets
- Dog beach
- The right word, the right sentence
- Staying connected
- The scent of sage
- My bed and pillow
- A knowing glance
- Clean water
- Car rides with each my kids
- Trader Joe’s employees with funny Thanksgiving “hats” on
- Warmth
- Songs with a gospel choir
- Silence
- Clean sheets
- Holding hands
- My aunt TC “helping” me with my garden
- Goose pimples
- My blue kitchen door
- A good deep breath…hell, breathing
- Truth
- A text from Molly or Kelly
- This moment
- David grocery shopping
- Life lessons
- The smell of the ocean
- Songs with a gospel choir
This is just the beginning…
What are you thankful for?
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
November, where has it gone?
I’ll tell you I’ve been lost in the craziness (oh, there’s that word again) in NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Over the thirty days of November, you write like a lunatic (ha!) all in an attempt to write 50,000 words by November 30th. I’m attempting to write my second memoir, so I’m enjoying the madness of NaMeWriMo.
It’s November 20th and I’ve “written” over 35,000 words. So I’m well on my way to the goal of 50,000, but let’s not jinx it. I put “written” in quotes because who knows what dribble, hallucinations, run on sentences I’ve created. Right now I know the memoir is full of divorce, remarriage, having babies, and the kitchen sink (You should really read this part…fascinating!). There is a freedom in producing so many words, however I have no idea if any of it will be worth saving or perhaps it will end up in the kitchen sink.
Throughout this insanity, I have managed to take showers, get dressed and out the door to work. I’ve worked out and put dinner on the table, such as it is. Sleep, I’ve done some of that. But the one thing I haven’t been able to keep up on is my blogging. I miss it, but this is the perfect opportunity to turn you on to some of my virtual friends. Check them out. You won’t be disappointed.
Bar Mitzvahzilla. Linda Pressman is one of seven sisters, daughter of Holocaust survivors, raising Jewish kids in a suburb of Arizona. When her son, a normal kid, was going through his Bar Mitsvah, he became a bridezilla thus Bar Mitsvahzilla was born.
The Bitch Blog. P.S. Jones puts the Bitch in the Blog. She gives all sorts of advice on love, cheating, marriage and a number of topics as a woman with an attitude. I love it cause she never apologizes. It is what it is.
Big Little Wolf’s Daily Plate of Crazy. Whatever life dishes out and whatever we can make of it…indeed. This French transplant who is a divorced mother of two is one of the most prolific bloggers I know. She writes on everything from fashion (notice the shoes on her banner) to Mad Men (she’s a big fan) to finding love again.
The Diary of a Gold-Digger. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth about my husband, his parents, and me-that woman.” It’s so truthful she doesn’t use her real name or any other names that could identify her and then send her in-laws on her trail. You go, girl!
Melia Lore. Chick Guru and Queen of Dorks. Melia is funny and serious. She is irreverent and deep. She is sassy and straight. She’s written about politics, losing her mind, finding work, raising kids, road trips, and so much more. The videos she posts, too, are pretty damn awesome.
I’m getting off the crazy train.
After more than three decades, I’ve been riding on it for too long. But I’ve wised up and I’m no longer going to be complicit on the journey. I’m done stoking the fire with heaps of coal. I’ve had enough of riding in the caboose, never knowing where the train is going, never having control. Instead I’ve let the other crazies control the train and be the engineer of my train. I gave over the reigns because I thought it was the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do (the path of least resistance) and then I was able to blame the other loonies when the train got off track.
“You’ve caused this. This isn’t where we were supposed to to end up.”
One day I looked out the window of the train. I saw the same scenery over and over again like a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon. So today I pulled the hand brake. I ran up the aisle past all the other crazies who I’ve been riding on the train with for years. Some tried to pull me back into place by grabbing on to my T-shirt, others tried to trip me. But I leapt over legs and moved to the front of the train.
I found the cab empty. I released the brake, felt the breeze on my face, breathed in the smell of pine trees and possibilities. My heart raced because change is scary and leaving behind known craziness is harder than knowing what craziness lies ahead.
Do you get this or have I dropped you at one of the crazy train stops? Gladys got it, a one way ticket back to a simpler life indeed.
This weekend I’ve been thinking about choices.
I used to think there were victims, victims of circumstances, and while I still believe some people have shitty luck or find themselves in horrible situations, for the most part I think people make choices. Seneca, a Roman philosopher said, “You are your choices.” This is especially true for us who are in the middle of life. At some point, we had to stop blaming our parents, our childhood, or anyone else for where we’ve ended up. This goes for the woman who has chosen to not marry and have children and then gets pissed off she’s alone, isolated and lonely. This goes for the man married to the alcoholic or prescription drug addict for years, and doesn’t leave her because he’s scared of the unknown or doesn’t want to let go. It’s a choice to stay, and if you do then own it.
I find it hard to understand people who make the same choices over and over and then blame everyone around them. Tell me how you can lose your job under similar circumstances and manage to blame the company culture and all the “boobs” you work with? Tell me how it’s possible for you to not wonder how you’ve managed to find yourself in your own “Groundhog Day” movie. Cynthia, a friend, gave me this advice, “If one person tells you your hair looks like crap, you shrug and say, ‘Whatever.’ If five people tell you the same thing, you better look in the mirror and figure out what to do about your hair.”
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes … and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” Amen, Sister! I’ve made all sorts of choices. Some were easy, oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast. Some were impossible, like my divorce. But no matter how easy or hard, I’ve taken responsibility for these choices and have managed the consequences come what may. Alfred A. Montapert said, “Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.” Then why do so many try?
“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.”–J. Michael Straczynski
Am I perfect at this? No, but I’m trying to focus my energy on living a good life, getting on with it, and showing my kids how to do the same.
God…I hope you’re listening.
What do you think about choices?
