"You better [start writing] now because you know
how to write, and you have fingers, and you have this one life, and during this
one life, you should put your words down, and make your voice heard, and then
let others hear your voice. And the only way any of that’s going to happen is
if you actually do it. People can’t read the thoughts in your head. They can
only read the thoughts you put down, carefully and with great love, on the
page. –Dave Eggers
So
I have another project that’s come up in the past two days. I mean, I haven’t decided it in the
last two days, I’ve started it in the last two days. November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for
short. I didn’t actually come up
with that particularly strange nickname, but I have decided to participate in
it.
What
is NaNoWriMo you ask? It’s a decision and commitment--not financial, just
personal—to write everyday for the month of November and to have that writing
come to at least 50,000 words. It’s the writing of your novel (usually you
first one I believe). The one that
needs to be written that you can’t seem to do and this is the thing that pushes
you into actually doing it. You
don’t finish with a final draft, ready to send out to publishers book, you have
a first draft that you can then do some things with it—revise it and then move
on to getting your novel really finished enough to send off to
publication.
So
I’m doing it.
It
isn’t the best timing considering my forty days of yoga doesn’t end until
November 15th, so having two things I’m committing to do pretty much
everyday is going to be a stretch.
A pretty big stretch and maybe a sleepy one on some days. (So I already apologize for the times I’m
cranky, especially the beginning of this month.) But it’s also something I need
to and that I’m excited about. (On
a side note, yoga is continuing to go really well. I made it six days a week the first two weeks and have
gotten there five days a week the past two. So with two more to go, I’m aiming for six times a week once
again. My arms are getting much stronger and maybe it’s only me that thinks my
triceps are less flabby, but I’m feeling more tone overall. The only strange part is that I’m
starting to think that being in a hot yoga room for about ninety minutes almost
everyday has lessened my tolerance for other, cooler temperatures. Not that I can’t deal with the cold,
just that I never used to get cold before and now I always feel cold. Sort of weird.)
So
I’m pumped to write my novel.
Other than the part that I’m not writing a novel. Not really. I’m writing a memoir of sorts—the book that has been inside
of me that needs to be written is not fictional. I’m not writing about something that’s imitating life, I’m
writing about a key part of my life. I’m writing the story about the student who has been
the most meaningful of my career, the student who taught me more about life and
what it means to struggle and to have a wonderful life even with
struggles. It’s the story I’ve
been meaning to write for a long time, the one that one my best writing
mentors, Patrick, told me he hoped grad school would help me write. Grad school has gotten me ready to
write this story even though I didn’t write it for one of my classes. So even though it should be a novel, I’m
going to write a book-length, novelesque memoir.
So
I started the book over that I’ve tried to start half a dozen times and this
time I might actually be able to finish it. I will actually
finish it. This month.
I’m
not slightly terrified by those two sentences. Not at all.
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