Depressing Discoveries

I’ll write when I have time, is what I and every aspiring, but lazy writer says. I have ideas, I wrote 5 books – in my head, but pen to paper, never happens.

I’m different, I said. I REALLY don’t have time. No excuses. There is no time. Teaching, prepping, marking papers, cooking, cleaning, diaper changing and plain old mommying (just as I sat down to write this my son came with a Dr. Suess book “Mommy, read a ducky feet!”), make up my entire day, there is no time for jotting down a few epiphanies.

Then my sister got engaged, and is now married (Mazal Tov RL!!!) and I wanted to give her a special gift. Nothing you can buy in the store (Can’t afford that anyway), but something from the heart, practical, and hand- made for her – a cookbook, with a monthly menu, and tips for the kitchen (When you have no time – use the stovetop. No patience – the oven).

I remembered when I first got married how overwhelming the whole kitchen experience was. Forget about the actual cooking, where I had zero to little experience, what I found most frustrating and anxiety provoking was deciding what to make in the first place. Once I knew what I was making, everything was much easier and focused. My sister has about the same cooking experience as me, and I figured she’d probably fall prey to the same mental torture as me, hence the menu.

Of course, since I have no time, this cookbook seemed to be more like a pipedream than an actuality. But I really wanted to do it, just like I really want to write. The wedding got closer and closer, and one morning I woke up and the Shabbos Kallah was a less than week away. And it was the end of the term, insane marking, essays, quizzes, rubrics, averages – big pain, little time.

I really wanted to do it though, so I did. I just did. I sat down, and did it. I even went to Amazing Savings to buy a nice loose-leaf (awesome store!), and then the Dollar Tree for sheet protectors (AS didn’t have). It was done in a night and day. That was it. Probably took about 6 hours total. I don’t know where I found the time. Everything I usually do in that time was accomplished too.

It’s motivating to realize that if I want to do something, it will get done. Very depressing though to realize I maybe don’t want to write as much I think I do.

NaNoWriMo Woes

I don’t know why I thought I could do it. I couldn’t even manage to blog once a week for a year, and there I was signing up NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, write a 50,000 word novel during the duration of November, about 1,700 words daily). It just seemed like a good idea to just get it all out. Have that push, that makes you actually do something.

So I wrote a basic outline of chapters, and that’s it. Figured the rest would come. No character planning, development of conflict on a deeper level, or solid sequence of events. Just making it all up as I’d go along, I’m pretty good at winging things.

The first day went well, and I wrote over 1,800 words. The second day, I only remembered at 11:30 that my word count was looking a bit low for the day, and so I wrote about 550. Then I got stuck, because I realized, I hated the very distant and detached narrator I had chosen to voice my story. And I stopped.

Then, tonight I reread what I wrote, it’s not so bad. Maybe I should continue, but I have a lot to make up. Then again one thing I really enjoyed about the writing so far, was just doing it, no second guessing. On NaNoWriMo website, they stress that it’s not about writing the next Anna Karenina, it’s about stopping your inner critic, that says you just wrote a load of _____, and just finish it. The revision and editing come later. And I found reminding myself of that purpose really helped me move forward – in those two days of course.

What to do now? Say wait till next year. Try to catch up and inevitably fail because, well, I have a lot more to do than make sure I sit down every day and write 1,700 words. Or say “Tooyoungtoteach, it was a wonderful go, but this is not your thing.”

(On the site they recommend the participants to tell everyone they know that they plan on making a go for it, as a source of motivation not to embarrass yourself when people start asking how it’s going…I think I’m a bit too late for that though.)