NaNoWriMo!

So I have challenged myself to complete a first draft of a short novel, the one I've been planning to write for more than a year now. I say "planning" because that's as far as I ever got, in a year... jotted ideas/notes, sketching out characters, putting to paper conversations that might take place between those characters, stuff like that. But I could never quite get myself to actually start the story-telling part. I'd heard of National Novel Writing Month, of course, but nothing lit the fire under me to actually DO it until now. Self-publishing my little book of poems was the spark that lit the proverbial fire, and I signed up last month. The basic premise is that you commit to yourself to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. That works out to something like 1,667 words per day. 

I'm trying to remind myself that it's about more than just the word count, though. Yeah, I know the commitment is 50,000 words and I am striving for that, of course. But I don't want to get so caught up in the word counts that I lose the magic of the story telling itself to me as I write it. So I'm not going to post daily word counts (when they're good) or beat myself up publicly (when they're not so good). Instead, I'll stick to posting those milestone word counts, like maybe every 5,000? I don't know yet. 

I have to admit something here. I'm feeling really good about this challenge, because I have finally started the get-down-to-business telling of this story that I have inside of me. I have learned many things about myself through psychotherapy, and one of those is that I tend to spend so much time thinking about doing things, that more often than not, I never get around to actually doing them. (Including therapy itself! I thought about it for a year before I finally made the call and started!) Well friends, 2014 has been a year of doing for me, and finally writing the novel I've been thinking about for more than a year is a fitting way to end that year. 

Don't you think?

Thoughts on inspiration and motivation

I'm thinking about inspiration this morning... that, and her sister motivation. Now I've gotten myself trained to write every day, whether or not I am feeling particularly inspired or even motivated to do so, as it's become a habit at this point. But I'm talking about something else... hmm, how do I say this, the chasing of that spark of inspiration, that feeling of "I have to write this NOW or it will be gone forever!" when I pull the car over to the side of the road, dig around the floorboards for a scrap of paper big enough to scribble a few notes on, which I then proceed to lose, and frantically search for after I get home.  Yeah, that.  And then when I finally find it again, I stare at it, completely unmotivated to do anything WITH it, the push of the moment of inspiration over, then copy it into my journal where it goes into hibernation until I'm motivated enough to work with it.

Wait, did I just say I chase that? I did, didn't I. And I guess I do. It's exciting to get that spark, after all! Alas, it isn't always that exciting.  Inspiration hides in all kinds of unlikely places... that's why it's so important to be Awake and not go through life like an automaton. I spent too many years of my life going through the motions as they say, eyes straight ahead going to work, doing my job, taking care of my family, you know the drill. Getting it all done, but effectively asleep. Waiting for "inspiration" to strike, and rarely putting pen to paper. It took a lot of work in therapy for me to be able to say that I am now living my life truly awake, and inspiration is just a turn of the head away.

Sometimes, of course, it just jumps right out and says HELLO!!

Poetry is when...

According to Robert Frost, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”  I really love this; of course, what don't I love from Mr. Frost? What a beautifully concise description of the process of creating poetry... especially the poems that, when completed, we read back to ourselves and wonder "where did that just come from?"  I don't feel like "I" have written those. It's like whatever the emotion was that stirred in my soul grabbed onto its thought, quite independent of any conscious doing on my part, and together they discovered their words... and I am responsible only for putting them to paper. It's beautiful when a poem is born that way! 

Perfect Imperfection

With the release of my first book of poems (you can purchase it here!) I'm also re-introducing my blog... and it's very much a work in progress, just like me. So, off we go!

Okay. So it's no big secret that I am a believer in talk therapy (a devotee, as my wonderful therapist recently anointed me). It has quite honestly been the best gift I could have ever given to myself; and I encourage anyone who has ever thought about embarking on the immensely rewarding adventure of self-knowledge to just go for it!

Now to the point of this post... after much stalling on my part (read: being a big chicken) I finally put together a selection of my most recent poems to self-publish, and submitted my little book to the independent publisher I had chosen to use. Submitted, reviewed, made changes; resubmitted, reviewed, made more changes; resubmitted, reviewed... well, you get the idea. After doing this numerous times I decided that if I continued to make changes until I thought it was perfect, I would likely never click on that scary "approve" button. I would remain stuck in the land of "big fat chicken" for the rest of my life. So, I took a deep breath and approved my book.

Yes folks, some of you have already guessed what comes next. The following morning, I looked at my proof again and discovered that I had submitted the wrong contents page. Eek!! So, it's out there now on Amazon, just as imperfect as I am....

Oh, I could probably jump through a few hoops with the publisher and try to do a last-minute correction. But if there's one thing I've learned in my therapy process, it's that I'm never going to be perfect - what I want to be, instead, is whole. Leaving my book out there "imperfect" is to me a testament to my acceptance of being imperfectly human; a promise to myself that I will never again let the fear of not being "perfect" keep me from realizing a dream.

I don't mean to advocate carelessness, or being lazy, or anything along those lines. That's not what this is about. This is about loving ourselves enough to accept that we will never be perfect and that it is "perfectly okay" to go out and make our dreams come true anyway!!

And, next time, just maybe get the contents page right....