Google Analytics

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Indecision 2014: NaNoWriMo Edition

In two days thousands of crazy creative people will go on overdrive and try to race against the clock and the calendar and themselves, and try to complete a 50,000 novel in 30 days.


I’m still in relative limbo, unsure whether I have it in me or if I even want to do this to myself again.

A couple of days ago, as the Antares rocket launch was scrubbed, a scene played in my head that has been forming for weeks. It may or not serve as the introductory scene to Love and the Android – it has a Halloween and a space theme. It also hints at the overall plot. But it does not call out to me…

I want to say that I have spent the last three weeks outlining and plotting and doing character studies. I’ve done nothing!

Yesterday, the relaunch for the rocket went horribly wrong. Thankfully, it was an unmanned vehicle, but it reminded me of Challenger. I thought of the kids that had gone to see their teacher go up then, and of the kids who were there this week to watch their experiment go up to the ISS.


Worst, I’d contacted an old schoolmate and suggested her boy watch (he likes space science). Would this spur his curiosity so that it cements his passion for it or turn him from it?

There is some drama there, themes that can be explored. Any space-related news is research and usually enticing, evocative, inspiring. And yet, I don’t feel seduced by the idea of jumping head first into this year’s adventure. But it is precisely this that makes me want to do it, because I don’t back down from a challenge.

I’m missing a couple of my cheerleaders this time around and that makes me sad. I didn’t finish the challenge last year and that left a bad taste in my memory. So I’d come into it as an underdog.

There have been several other real life challenges met and fought and survived this past year that had the potential to leave serious scars. Perhaps that has made me a little gun shy, but it is also the reason I ought not sit out NaNoWriMo.

The decision shouldn’t be so hard, but at its core is a woman who wants to be creative but only if she can commit to it in the way others commit to marriage. Not that NaNoWriMo requires all that, so essentially it is pilot error from the get-go, with me getting in the way of me. The writer’s nightmare… 

(This neurosis shouldn’t happen before NaNoWriMo, it’s usually scheduled for late in the second week!)


When the clock strikes 12:01 am on the Day of the Dead, I will start typing my story. The excitement will mount and I simply will not be able to help myself, because no matter what else I may be, deep within my soul resides a writer.

Now, can anyone tell me where I put Grandma’s English/Hindi dictionary? 


No comments:

Post a Comment