In answer to that inevitable online question for the month of November: WRITING!!!
More specifically, picking up the gauntlet thrown down by a friend in the NaNoWriMo challenge (National Novel Writing Month = write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days). I’ll be using this time to FINALLY finish the MUCH ANTICIPATED (by me as much as anyone) Love of the Living Dead serial cum novella cum novel or whatever a month of hardcore writing brings me. And as you delightful online people are my best way to burn all productivity in my idle hours, I’ll be taking a wee social media sabbatical for the month of November, or however long it takes to finish this thing, I’m not going to get too worked up about the 50,000 words in 30 days but will plunk along daily as much as my muse and capacity to construct a sentence can muster.
You can follow my writing adventure on the NaNoWriMo site, and I will occasionally tweet a NOT DEAD, STILL WRITING tweet now and again. And I may add a comment here once in a while if there’s not a feature for that on my NaNoWriMo profile – ’cause at this pace I will be having weird zombie dreams before it is in the bag (um, the book, not the zombie) and I really should share that sort of thing.
After two years of stalls and interruptions I am super jazzed to be taking this on, and also very daunted by what I am taking on.
It’s been a while, but here in my life, in this moment, is yet another WAHOOohshitohshitohshit.
Wish me luck!
Valerie Roney 
dear Valerie,
Yay! I think I have read some decent products of mass writing marathons.
Best, me
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You have a cheering squad, here. Enjoy your month of zombie writing!
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Well, reread what I already had, and posted my starting wordcount of 5,188 on NaNoWriMo. only 44,812 words to go! Excited about the story, lots of pondering to get things moving forward after so much delay. Ridiculously overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I’ve taking on. I have to add to what I’ve got by nearly tenfold. But thinking about it, every shell of an idea or scene in my head usually takes about a thousand words to flesh out on the page. Just hope I’ve got 44 of them. WahooOhshitOhshitOhshit.
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After a grand day of procrastination, culminating in waxing ALL my shoes and taking turns walking around in them while doing laundry, I finally settled down to writing a bit by hand before I go to bed.
We are UNDERWAY people! HiYo!
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Most recently I’ve been writing a zombie/human lovers’ argument along with that long teary late night conversation that follows. I was surprised how emotionally drained this left me, after all, it’s just fiction …right?
I went to my parents for dinner, tried to explain how I was left feeling after the last couple of days of writing.
“Remember when some boy would break my heart and I’d show up shaky, still kinda in tears, saying: Mom put the kettle on!”
“Yes.” My mother said with a lot of layers of motherly knowledge behind it.
“Well this feels like that but way worse because I’m feeling it for both sides. I’m beginning to think, these characters are so viscerally real to me now, I don’t think there isn’t a single author who isn’t at least a little bit mad.”
My mom, looks at me, includes me under the title of ‘author’ …and nods.
So, today, thanks to my mother, I am starting to feel like a “real” author. …and a little bit mad.
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Times like this a mom and cup of tea are the perfect foil. Sounds like your mom knows that all you need is somewhere safe to let go, and to be listened to, no matter how mad you are. Your mom is awesome!
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