Because I'm a crazy person, that's why.
The title is just answering the question I've been asking myself all week:
"Why did I decide to participate in NaNoWriMo* for the first time now, when my life is completely full with raising five children (including a baby with lots of doctor appointments), homeschooling, taking care of the house, trying to knit Christmas presents for those five children, serving on the committee for a writing contest, and all the other details of daily life?"
*National Novel Writing Month, in which participants pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November
But besides sheer lunacy, the answer is that the timing is working out really well for me, as it never has before. For one thing, I had a new novel all outlined (or at least as much as I like to outline). For another, Baby Gabriel wants a milky snack every morning at five a.m., and writing is the one, and only, task on my giant list of things to do that I really can accomplish one-handed, at five in the morning (besides praying, and I can tell you that a lot of extra praying happens when you try to write a first draft in a month).
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| Best. Alarm clock. Ever. (And, yes, if you're wondering...my dad took this picture, too.) |
And it's a good feeling to be accomplishing something this meaningful when the needs of so many others are pulling me in various directions. I desperately needed to get back into the routine of writing productively every morning; as Madeleine L'Engle pointed out in her book Walking on Water, we writers are better people when we're actually getting writing done. Would you believe my house is actually getting cleaner than it had been all October? Blame procrastination. Every time I walk up to the computer and think, "I should write, but I don't feel like writing at the moment," I end up deciding, "Hey! Folding laundry! I really want to fold laundry!"
What crazy projects are you all tackling this November?
Faith, I just love that picture. Your dad caught Gabriel at the beginning of a smile. I think you are going to do great with your little writing buddy there.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to work on 3 PBs that have been noodling around in my head for a couple of years. Time to see how they get mangled as they go from head to paper. The topics are too lofty and I think perhaps the reason I freeze.
Yes, if we'd had the picture a second later, it would have been a full-blown grin. :) But beginnings of smiles are very sweet, too!
DeleteGood luck with your picture books! I think they are far harder than novels to write.
That's a beautiful picture!
ReplyDeleteGood luck! I hope it works out for you! Even if you don't end up with a complete first draft, you'll have more than you would have had otherwise. The timing wasn't great for me this year. I'm still revising something else.
I'm on my third year of PiBoIdMo, though, and I've already written a draft for one of my new ideas.
Wow, good for you, already getting a draft out! As I said above, I think picture books are a really hard form to master--heaven knows, I haven't done so yet. For me, they're great practice in making all my words count, but I've never written one that's good as anything other than practice.
DeleteHow many words are you averaging during your 5 a.m. writing/feeding sessions? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I am doing Picture Book Idea Month again. My personal goal is 40 ideas, though to "win" I only need 30.
So far, I'm able to write about 2000 words in the morning and another couple hundred later in the day, which helps me keep momentum going until the next morning. Before I started doing NaNoWriMo, I was only getting that hundred or two out during the day, so this has proven very useful!
DeleteBest of luck with the picture books! I tried that last year...and totally failed. (Well, I got eight or so ideas out, but none of them have made it into manuscripts yet!)
Wow, Faith! Good for you! I've never attempted NaNo. Also, I'm deep into revisions on novel #4. But, like Rebecca, I am participating in PiBoIdMo this month, over at Tara Lazar's blog. It's a lot of fun and a lot less pressure. I'm up to 15 ideas already. And no worries if none of them make it into actual manuscripts. Usually one or two out of my 35 or so turn into manuscripts.
ReplyDeleteYou are a superstar!!!
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