There's Nothing In There!

Today is day one of NaNoWriMo, and I'm stuck. I had several ideas floating around in my head yesterday, and I was ready to hit the keys running as soon as the clock struck midnight. By 10pm I was completely exhausted from a particularly rough day with the toddler, and decided to start my writing after a good night's sleep and a morning workout on the exercise bike.

I slept well. I worked out well. I even drove to the library where I could sit alone and focus on the task at hand, leaving the toddler to torment his father for the afternoon.

I've written one page of something that may or may not qualify as some sort of weird internal dialogue. I'm fairly convinced that the second I sat down in this seat and opened my computer, my brain gave me the finger and said "Peace out!"

So, what now? I am scouring my thoughts and trying desperately to come up with something that might be worthy of 30 days' attention, but the problem is my head feels completely empty. It's a little terrifying, actually, because I can't even find the motivation to work on some of my old stuff. Zero ideas. Old or new. NOTHING.

This isn't good. I think maybe I'll check out some library books and do some reading at home. Maybe that will help jump start my motivation and I can get something accomplished...

Fuck.

NANOWRIMO

NaNoWriMo.

"What the hell is that?" I hear you asking.

Well, for me, it's a looming thing - a seemingly insurmountable challenge - which I've thrown myself into every year for the last five or so. I have yet to succeed, so naturally I'll try again this year.

It stands for National Novel Writing Month. The insane (and absolutely fantastic) idea is to write like your life depends on it from 12:00 am on November 1st until 11:59 pm on November 30th, in an attempt to finish an entire novel (all 50,000 words of one) within a single month. I know.

FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS in THIRTY DAYS.

Now, I'm a mother, and before that I was a full-time zookeeper (which never actually means 8-5 M-F), and obviously there is no sunup to sundown writing schedule in my past, present or future. So I don't ever EVER think of the total word count. Ever. It's just too big. Too scary. Instead, I think of it in terms of "slightly less than 6 pages per day" or even "1600 words per day" because even that sounds doable.

I say that as if I've actually managed to finish an entire novel during this annual writing frenzy, which I have not, despite those five attempts. It seems like every year I go into it with a great deal of enthusiasm and determination, and then I hit a slow spot in my plot or I miss a day or two of writing and then I lose my gumption.

I'd like to say that this year will be different, and I truly hope it is, but who fucking knows? The good news is, I usually walk away from the thing with yet another novel idea on my list. I always start something completely different from anything else I've written, because I feel like I'm cheating if I just start adding to something I'd already begun before that November 1st date. What can I say? I'm a rule following prude.

This angel calls bullshit on my self-appointed 'prude' label - she's never seen me before...

Anyway. The point is, I've apparently decided to participate in this event every single year, whether I finish or not. Honestly? I kinda love that. I'm a big believer in the power of focused energy - from one person or many - so the idea of jumping on a writing bandwagon with almost half-a-million other creative minds is incredibly seductive to me. Actually, that's another great thing about NaNo. There are organized write-ins all over the world. You can find a nearby event on the website, and then go to the meetup (typically held at libraries, book stores, parks, in back alleys or creepy old church basements) and sit around with other people who've also decided to torture themselves for thirty straight days. There's something incredible about all of that creativity, all of that uninhibited imagination crammed together in a limited space. Stop making that face. The one that says "What. The. Fuck is she talking about? What a fruitcake."

There is nothing wrong with being a bit of a fruitcake.

So, my plan? Mostly just to spend every free minute I've got with my face in front of a computer or a notebook. This means my kid will likely be watching more television than normal in November, and dinners will probably be served out of the crockpot on a regular basis (seriously - I am a HUGE fan of throwing some frozen meat and a bunch of other tasty shit in a heated bowl and magically having dinner ready at the end of the day), but I don't think the world will come crashing down over it.

In the meantime, I have ONE day to come up with a story idea. Damn it.

Procrastination: 1

Me: 0

Weight Loss Woes

I've been trying to lose weight recently.

Actually, recently is probably a little misleading, since I've been trying to lose weight since I was like fourteen. Off and on, of course, just like the rest of the American population (most of it, at least).

Dear bathroom scale: You suck.

Most people probably have a similar M.O. to mine, which includes a few days to a few weeks (maybe even months, if I'm lucky) of general diet improvement and increased activity. Occasionally, depriving myself of every food I've ever craved and then trying to kill myself everyday with the latest popular exercise routine yields some results. Nothing spectacular, but enough for me to notice and begin feeling good about it.

Then what happens? A myriad of options here. Someone visits from out of town, or the holiday season creeps up, or maybe I just decide I've been really good and say "Fuck it!" for a few days. No matter the trigger, I end up miserable and hating myself and decide this will never work (just like the last time, and the time before that. Oh, and the time before that one, too). So I go straight back to eating like an idiot and pretending I've never heard the word 'exercise' in my entire life.

Nobody wants to see me jogging down the street. Trust me.

Why in the hell do we do this to ourselves (I'm assuming there are others stuck in the same cycle, since it makes me feel better)? It's not like I don't BELIEVE all the hype about feeling great when you're at a healthy weight - I do! I really really do! If you've ever been significantly overweight like I am, then you probably totally get how fucked up and hopeless it all seems when you fail (yet again) to succeed at another weight loss attempt. It's like the shittiest roller coaster ride of all time. Eventually, I find myself wallowing in self-pity (and maybe a few cupcake wrappers) and throwing in the towel yet again. I spend a few days (or months) in this broken state, and then I read something inspiring or see something awesome online or on tv, and the whole moronic thing begins anew. Fuck. Me.

Now that I've painted a really depressing picture of the weight loss world from the perspective of the eternally fluffy, I can lighten things up a bit....

I've discovered a pretty great new (free! woohoo!) tool. This new tool, combined with a modified outlook on the whole business of gettin' skinny, has me feeling markedly more optimistic about my most recent weight loss endeavor. It's called MyFitnessPal, a free app that I can access from my phone or online, and it's been a tremendous eye opener for me. It's essentially a food and exercise tracker, which sounds like no big deal, but I think the reason I love it is because it's so damn easy. I don't have to calculate every damn thing I eat and then enter it myself, because there's an unbelievable amount of foods already in the database. Even cooler, it has a barcode scanner, so I can just scan a barcode with my phone and it pulls up the food automatically. I just enter how many servings I ate (usually just one, honest) and it logs it for me.

So. The benefits? I was able to enter my current weight, a goal weight, a desired timeline for losing that weight, and it calculated a daily calorie goal for me. That gets adjusted if I log any exercise, which I keep track of just like my food intake. It's even compatible with some of the fancy new body monitoring doohickeys (scientific jargon), so you can even more accurately log your calories burned and consumed.

The down side of this? I had to own up to EVERY SINGLE THING that I ate. In the beginning, this was completely embarrassing - despite the fact that I was the only one who saw my food logs. Seriously. I thought I was doing ok, but once I had to log every little thing and then look at it at the end of the day, I was blown away at how not ok I was doing. The amount of bullshit making its way into my diet without my conscious acknowledgment - holy shit!

So, yeah. Now that I've forced myself to take accountability for literally everything I eat, it's much easier to tell myself NO when I'm nearing my limit. Easier than I can ever recall, actually. This feels like a huge win! I hope, though, that this becomes a small win in comparison to meeting my ultimate goal.

Speaking of my ultimate goal - I was going to elaborate on my new thoughts about all of this, but it's late. That's good. Now I have something to write tomorrow....

I have a blog? I have a blog!

Hey, look, I have a blog! That was the exact thought I had a few weeks ago when I remembered that this blog was here, floating around on the interwebs, all alone and without anyone to care for it. I was reminded of it when I tried to comment on another blog and was prompted to sign in with my email, which then led me to my own page.

What does it mean when you start a shiny new blog to chronicle all of your trials and tribulations as a writer, then you use it twice and forget about it for a year and a half? It means you're a mom (or some other equally as frenzied occupation) and there's a lot of crazy unexpected shit going on in your life.

The list of changes that have crash landed into my life since that last post is long. Really, really goddamn long. I still have the same desire to write, but that's practically the only thing that hasn't changed. For now, the most notable development is a relocation across the country, from Arizona to Michigan.

It's been nearly a year since the move, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, I still have no fucking idea if this was a great idea or a terrible one. If I sat down and made a list of all the reasons to stay in Michigan, and then placed it next to a list of all the reasons to throw in the towel and hightail it back to the desert, there would probably be a near tie. Let's have a look.

Reason #1 to STAY: My husband adores his job. This would be a difficult thing to give up, because he hasn't had a job that he loves in a very long time. He's also really really good at his job, so he's racking up experience and kudos like there's no tomorrow which will be a significant benefit to him in the future.

Reason #2: I fucking LOVE this state. There are no 115° days or 100° nights, no third-degree burns from seat belt buckles, no vast oceans of old people when the weather finally is pleasant. Instead I'm surrounded by huge trees and lakes in every direction. I swear to god I could probably throw a rock into a body of water if I'm standing anywhere in this entire damn place - it's glorious. There are four incredible seasons which are (holy shit) completely discernible from one another. People are damn nice here, too. I mean, there are nice people in Arizona, too, but it's on a completely different level up here. Drivers are more courteous, people wave at you when you drive past their house, I've been lost more times than I care to admit and been happily steered in the right direction by someone in a store or at the gas station. This was all a surprise to me, because I was a naive western girl and a little nervous about living so close to The D (this is for a completely different blog entry). Actually, now that I think about it, the niceness might actually become a negative for me at some point. It may piss me off some time in the future when I'm hell-bent on having a shitty day and everyone's being nice. Am I the only one who just wants to wallow in bitchiness sometimes?
Anyway, for now I'm leaving the nice people on the 'stay' list, because they have yet to wear on my pessimistic bitch nerve. In the future, I may amend this and give them their own bullet on the 'go' list.

Reason #3: I wouldn't mind going to school here. Up to this point, all of my college is science/animal related, but I'm really heavily considering adding an English major. There are several great options here for both educational directions, and I'd like to explore those. Of course I could go to school in Arizona - I was in school while I was there - but I'm liking the options here.

Reason #4: This one may only make sense to me, but, my soul feels happier here. I find some sort of inspiration here every single day. This is strictly related to the differences in natural environment between MI and AZ, I think, but there is no mistaking how much joy I get from the environment here. Despite the lack of updates to this blog, I have done more writing since arriving here than I had done in over two years in Arizona. Considering how much love I have for that activity, I think there's certainly something to be said for this.

Ok, for the sake of keeping this entry shorter, let's move on.

Reason #1 to GO: I miss my family. Sure, hubby's family is here, but that's a completely different number on this list and probably NOT on the 'stay' side. I figured the distance between myself and the rest of my family would be a good thing, at least for a while, but I'm surprised to be admitting how much I miss them.

That totally makes it sound like I ran away screaming with joy the second I had an opportunity to get away from my family, which isn't true!

Actually, I'm full of shit. That's totally how it was. I was so sick of being lectured and grumbled at, despite being a grown ass woman. Not to mention the fact that my entire family (save me) is Republican, which makes me the "left wing liberal, tree-hugging hippie" as my mother so enjoys referring to me (lovingly, of course).

At the time, there was no doubt in my mind that space was exactly what we needed. Now, though, I feel very differently. Families grumble, sure, but they're still family. I'd sort of love to hear my dad's gravely disapproving voice right about now. What's worse, every time I'm around my husband's family it becomes more and more clear to me that I'd much prefer my son be raised closer to my side of the bunch (that's not even another number - that's a completely separate blog post).


Reason #2: Though I am liking some of my schooling options here, it would be much easier to finish up what I've already started in Arizona. I have credits there that will mean virtually nothing here, and I could be finished within a year.

Reason #3: This might sound a bit high school, but I have some great friends in Arizona, and very few here. Considering how difficult it seems to be for me to make friends, this means a great deal of loneliness comes with the Michigan package. Considering I was in Arizona for about 14 years and left with just a handful of really close friends, I clearly have a long road ahead of me in a new state. I don't get along with many people. I can't help it - I don't like bullshit! Mommy groups, thus far, haven't been very helpful in this arena, so I'm not optimistic.

Reason #4: Quite frankly, I think I'm just a western girl at heart, and I miss that!

Progress? Sort of...

Several days have gone by, and so far I've managed to get very little writing done on my newest venture. However, I did receive some excellent feedback, both constructive and supportive, on a project I've been carrying around for quite some time. It seems to have been just the kick I needed, because it renewed my interest in the piece. I was prepared to sideline this particular bit because I was becoming so bored with it. I think I'm going to dig it out and see where this takes me.

One of the most difficult parts of regular writing that I encounter is my one-year-old son, Evan. This miraculous, amazing, perfectly wonderful little being makes it a great challenge to make progress of any kind. I am constantly torn between two of my dear loves. Of course, no matter how badly I desire to write, I am a mother first.

For now, this means that I write when the kiddo is asleep or otherwise occupied with a toy, the cat or his daddy. When he's a little older and spending more time with friends and daycare and such, I will be able to give my writing more of the time it deserves. In the meantime, I write in short bursts whenever I get a free second and it meshes properly with a bit of creativity.

That being said, time for dinner!

Here's to new beginnings!

Here I go, starting a blog at 11 o'clock at night, its sole purpose to help me clear my head and maintain my motivation.

I've been trying to finish a novel since before I was fourteen. I've started many many MANY novels, but I have yet to finish one. That means that I have over fourteen years of practice NOT finishing a novel. I think it's time to end that streak.

I came up with a new concept last week. I officially started it today, and though I currently only have two pages completed, I am still pretty excited. It was a good day to begin a new blog and to start a new novel project.

I think part of my excitement about this new story is how different it is from anything I've written in a while, and it is starkly different than anything I've written hard on. What I mean by 'written hard' is just that. When I say I've written hard on something, I mean I've gotten lost in it. I've spent hours upon hours deep within the story and in some cases, had to dig myself back out to find reality again. When you can truly love your story enough to do that, to disappear into it for a time, you know you're 'writing hard'.

I have several stories that have taken me to that level. My problem lately has been boredom, I think. Boredom with my stories. I don't think they're boring, of course, or I wouldn't be writing them. Rather I think I am bored with them because I have spent SO much time with them. I need something askew from my typical road so I can refresh my senses, rouse my creativity, stretch my... novelist muscles...

My intent for this blog is to chronicle my successes and struggles with my writing. I have another blog on xanga, which I update occasionally, but I think current circumstances call for a fresh, new BLANK blog. Some would tell me to get off the damn blog and use this time on my official works. The problem with that, is you end up where I am right now. I strongly believe in spending time writing, AWAY from your primary material. A blog is an excellent tool for this. I can use the space to spew whatever garbage is in my head, blocking my true story. Or, like today, I can talk to myself and be my own motivator.

This could be good. We'll have to see where it goes from here.