November is the month of Christmas decorations appearing in shops, moustaches, Thanksgiving (if you live in America/are married to one), bad weather and it's also the month when thousands of people around the world sit down to attempt banging out a novel.
The name? NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
The aim? To write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days
The reason? Insanity
Don't get me wrong. I'm doing it this year too. I'll admit insanity quite happily, to quote Disney's Alice In Wonderland;
You're completely bonkers, but I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.
I watched last November as my husband not only completed the goal but exceeded it to 80,000 words! And it was crazy but definitely seemed like something I wanted to attempt as well. So this year I've gotten stuck into the whole business and so far it seems to be going well (*knock on wood and hope I haven't jinxed myself*). But trying to figure out where to go and what to write proved far more difficult than I thought it would.
I spent the week leading up to November thinking about one story and then on the day before it started switched to something different. With the roughest of guidelines in my head (and on a random scrape of paper that I'm guarding for dear life) I've got an idea where I'm going, but day one was worrying to say the least.
Due to commitments outside of NaNo I didn't have time to sit and write until 8 o'clock in the evening. With just four hours to try and hit my minimum target of 1,667 words for the day I was anxious. But once I got past that first hurdle known as paragraph one everything seemed to flow, thankfully. That first paragraph is definitely the most stressful I think, any reader will tell you that if the first page doesn't grab them chances are they won't read the rest of the story. The less commonly known statistic is that most readers make up their mind about a story within the first few sentences. How's that for pressure?
But despite all the nerves and confusion NaNoWriMo does something wonderful, it brings people who love to write together in a huge global community and gives support to what is usually a very lonely activity. I've already met some interesting and fun people through NaNo and it's only day three, can't wait to see what the rest of this month will bring in terms of inspiration, people and experiences.
Fair dues to all my compatriots taking part in NaNoWriMo this year and good luck reaching at elusive goal.
Since January I've been afflicted with the most irritating skin disorder of my life to date. Rosacea. It's a surprisingly common skin condition and a pain in the ass. Thankfully I don't have a very bad dose of it but it's persistent and only a two month course of medication will shift it, along with doctors orders to not wash it with anything other than water. I'm also under orders to not apply moisturiser or make up!
So for the past two months I didn't feel like heading out for a night out because I didn't want to put on make up and possibly prolong this annoying, bumpy rash on my face. I'd refused to let anyone take photos of me and found myself reluctant to socialise in a public setting with people. Then my wonderful, darling husband said something to make me stop and re-evaluate my behaviour, "You're always beautiful to me." No words are sweeter to your ears when you're feeling down about how you look.
So I sucked it up and went out to meet a friend in the pub a few weeks ago, accidentally picking a night that the pub would be packed with football fans for the match! I groaned when I saw the sign outside the door and realised that our quiet night out was going to be anything but. As tempting as it might be to turn around and head somewhere else in that situation I implore you not too. Grit your pearly whites and keep moving forward. It's worth it.
That evening was a short one as we didn't have dinner before we headed out but it was great to catch up with my friend who I hadn't seen in a while and hear about the wonderful things that were going on in their life. And I completely forgot that I had what looked like bad acne on my cheek or that I wasn't wearing make up. I felt like myself again; chatting away and catching up on all the gossip that I'd missed, never once feeling self concious while I was talking to them and delighting in the feeling of being out and about again.
I've been accused of caring too much about what others think but that wasn't why I was so down about having rosacea. There is this impossible picture in my head of the person I want to be, and I doubt I'm the only one with this. I want to be someone that is so much more than how I see myself, someone who can make others people's lives better by being a part of it, someone who is to be aspired to. Maybe one day I'll get there but in all honesty I doubt it. That impossible picture is the best version of myself, without all those little flaws that make a person human. If I were to ever achieve it what else is there to work for?
And yes I dread the idea of being that perfect version of myself even as I work towards it. Because who I am now is someone that my friends enjoy talking to, whose advice or idiot comments help (even if it's not in the way that I was aiming for). Who I am is what I have to work with and lamenting the lack of perfection is like saying that I don't deserve what I have now. The things I have now I've worked for and whether or not I deserve them in the grand scheme of things is irrelevant to me, because I'm not giving them up.
Perfection is boring, I'll stick with being weird and interesting thank you.
Take a wild guess what I'm talking about. Any takers? No?
"Just write."
Yup, that helpful piece of advice that every writer has heard at some point in their life. It's especially irritating when you're suffering from a dose of writers block and someone turns around to say "Just keep writing" It makes you want to pull your hair out, even if sometimes it is the only way to get past the block.
So I'm changing it.
If someone asks me for advice about writing (I'm not an expert but I like to write) I tell them to put the pen down, step away from the computer, get out in the fresh air or take part in a riveting conversation and let your brain take a break from what's blocking you.
Your subconscious will keep thinking on what you're writing, especially if it's something close to your heart, so let it do it's job. Give it time, not too much though because then you run the risk of losing momentum on what you're writing. When you're ready, come back with fresh eyes and mind to where your stuck and go from there.
Sometimes you can get past the block in your story/review/blogpost/journal if you backtrack a few sentences and let your mind take you on a slightly different path. Don't be afraid to switch tracks. Take a breath and run with it, if you've taken a break from writing and when you come back you find what your saying has changed don't fight it. That's the path your amazing subconscious imagination has figured out to help you past this.
Run with it. Embrace it because without these changes there would be no improv in life, nothing new, no amazing works of art or killer music, no sweeping stories or the multitude of quotable movie lines that we have now!
What do I do when I get writers block?
I read fanfiction, play puzzles on-line, kick back with a drink and indulge in a ludicrous conversation that embraces the absurd, hell if I'm visiting my parents at the time I play with the dogs!
So my three words of advice for writers boils down to this "Take a break."
