I am seriously considering this again, and the only thing that makes me more hopeful than the last two years is that I've been having a lot of fun writing little bits and pieces of fiction over on the Novitas forums as an extension of LARP. It feels nice to be writing again, but weird, like rediscovering that younger version of myself who had more free time and possibly less friends, but certainly more opportunity and brain space to sit and write.

The problem with me is that I like to spread the writing out over hours. I'll write a scene, I'll check my e-mail, livejournal, and the forums, write another paragraph or two, play a game of solitaire, pick at the page some more, get a snack, make some tea, write again, and so on. It's a mode of being. It's the business that regularly kept me up until 3 or 4am during college when I was writing a paper. It's a part of the process for me.

However, it's not only inefficient, it's impractical while working full-time and having "shit to do." Who has time to putz to let creativity simmer when there are dishes and laundry and dinner to be made and Netflix and electrical problems and, and, and...

It also makes me a lousy human being to live with or interact with, and can be impossible while not living alone. It's an active choice to temporarily ignore the real humans in my life for the paper ones. The last few years I started NaNo, part of my commitment problem was that I decided that I didn't want to ignore the real people.

I need to find a happy medium between the two if I'm going to make it work this year. For that lesson, I'm willing to not finish, so long as I learn how to start the balancing act.

I don't have work today and Justin is at class, so my goal is to make some plot notes and get some characters designed so I have a place to jump off from.

I topped the 20k mark but have been petering out on the overall word count gains this weekend. I came to a point where I realized that while it was possible for me to finish it was not worth the loss of family time due to holing myself up with a computer. However, I am really happy with the stuff coming out of me on this NaNo and I do intend to finish it. Just not by November 30th.

Today I am going to be working on another flash fiction. Hopefully this one won't be sappy like the other two. My prompt is to use a set of words: orange, jump, wet, and briefcase. (At the end of class he had each of us say a random word off the top of our heads.) My previous prompt was "On her birthday he gave her twenty-five Hershey kisses, one for each year of her life," and before that it was Romeo and Juliet.

I don't think I will ever take a writing class and do NaNo at the same time again. I don't feel like I put adequate time into the class, and since I'm not a full-time student anymore it's really only what I make of it (ie, not just some hoops to jump through - it's all for me).

The same teacher is offering a class on manuscript preparation and marketing for publication in January or February. I don't think I'll take it, though; I've got the basics of those skills, I just need to actually implement them. Much the same could be said about the class I'm taking now, however, because I know how to write and I know how a good story should be structured - I just need to do it more. Practice.

I've been working on my flash fiction class homework, picking at it here and there between times. Last week the prompt was Romeo and Juliet, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do and reading scenes from the play before whipping out my story. This time I have a different prompt, a sentence, and I've started three different attempts at a story. The problem with these shorties is that since it's always less than 500 words, it feels like nothing to throw them away. So I keep writing as I come up with different ideas and discard the last, and I have three incomplete stories now, all written in the last 24 hours. Class is tomorrow. I need to pick one and just complete it and edit the snot out of it. But I keep getting snagged.

I'm bad at plotting. I just write until I do something wrong, and then it feels really wrong, and I need to add something to the beginning and cut something else, only what I don't know, etc. And then it leads me to a tangent and mostly unrelated idea, which doesn't fix the problem but only creates its own new ones.

Why can't I finish anything? Why do I spend so much time on the preparation for a 500 word story?

My brain is rather dead, but I most definitely need to pick one of my ideas and work on it tonight.

I suck at NaNo this year. I find the prep and mindset for this class to be in total opposition to NaNo philosophy. They do not mix well. Of course, nothing seems to be mixing well lately. I'm up in the air. I think I might be remaking myself again. Most of it is not too bad. I'd like to include a little follow-through, though. And no car accidents.

I'm rambling. So badly. This is horrible for my writing plans tonight. I am going to type the last one up and stare at it for a while.

I might be abandonning NaNo this time around.

I've had a string of minor crises, starting with the job last week and my car this week.

I am totally behind on word count. Not impossible behind, but really behind.

I like my story, but I can't seem to get out lots of words on it at once. I think it is worth writing, but I am not sure it can handle the sort of speed NaNo requires. I like picking at it. I like approaching the scene and crafting it and not writing poo.

I am just not latching onto the NaNo motivation, for whatever reason. It isn't on my brain 24/7 the way last year's was. I am not plotting at work. I am not writing on my breaks. I get home and I don't think, MUST WRITE! I am not writing before dinner. I am not writing when I wake up early in the morning. I am hardly writing any more than I was before NaNo.

I honestly think doing NaNoWriMo last year kept me sane while I was stuck in retail. It was a huge confidence and morale boost just to be doing it, success or not. It was the first thing I'd written that was more than a page long since I finished my senior thesis and graduated college. It was a big deal.

I am not saying this can't be a big deal too, but I haven't stopped writing for more than a week since August, and I have basically been picking away at writing and writing tasks since May. (After a six-month hiatus post-NaNo.) And that is ultimately more important to me to be able to say than that I've done NaNo again.

I don't want to count myself out yet, because I might as well hold up until November. (Saying "I quit!" feels like an excuse to give myself the rest of the month off.) But right now I just don't feel it. And I don't think it's the week two blues, because I haven't felt it except the tiniest inkling on the first day or two.

It seems to happen every so often that I will be going along smoothly and then WHAM, I don't want to write anymore. I spend more time feeling guilty that I am not writing than actually attempting to write. I stress out. I stew. I pick at things for a while longer, then I stop altogether. I think about it still but don't do anything. Time lapses. Then I miss it. I start to feel like some part of me fell off. I go looking for it. I find pieces of it and struggle to put a habit back together so that I'll be whole again. I manage it and have some really productive time before I start the cycle over again.

I am self-analyzing, so that might not be entirely accurate. But I do know I pass in and out of periods where I have trouble writing, and I think I am in the beginning of one now. I'm low on sleep this week but don't fall asleep quickly at night. I'll have been away from home three weekends this month, and although I love the traveling and the things I've seen and done, it's hard for me to squeeze the writing in during the week so that I feel like I'm keeping up.

I'm kind of venting right now, thinking out loud and keeping a record of it. Trying to decide if there is a good solution here. I haven't been cutting myself much slack in the guilt department because I am afraid that I'll stop for months again if given the chance. But I'm not even sure what my goal is: hobby? publication? skill development? building toward possible part-time or full-time job?

I'm thinking about finishing out this month with my writemore goal of 4000 words a week and then either cutting my goal down drastically (maybe 1500 words?) or just giving myself the month off for October. This month it has been increasingly difficult to get many words out as pure fiction or craft, and so I've been pouring out extra odds and ends to supplement myself toward my goal - essays, articles, and rants, mostly. I've also been doing 15 minute writing exercises and scenes, just to pad out an extra 500 words here and there. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but I'd like to be working on stories that are going places instead. I'd also really like to be able to put some time into planning and restarting my NaNo revisions from last year and the joint story with Justin, and I want to be able to fiddle with both at a nice liesurely pace.

I was totally looking forward to doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and now I am not sure if I want to do it at all. I think I need to switch modes and do some editing, rewriting, and planning for a little while. I need a break from counting words.

I have two weeks of vacation left at work and I am thinking of taking a week toward the end of November, especially if I do decide to do NaNo. A month off from the word-counting and an extra week without the old 9 to 5 makes it seem a lot more feasible. I'll decide closer to if I really want to do it or if the other projects I have on my plate are enough.

I hate to jinx it further, but I really think my deadline is going to be pushed to the end of August instead of July. Things just keep happening. I am not giving up yet, but it's like my fire station being destroyed November 1st before NaNo. I mean, hell, as I typed that we just got a fire call for a mutual aid on a trailer fire. And I can't go because I have to go to work in the morning. An I haven't finished my newspaper article yet. And I can't go to the funeral tomorrow because I have to go to work. But on it goes.

My friend John says that unless I believe my current project is utterly irredeemable trash, I should keep at it until it is complete.

Me, I kind of wish it were time for another round of NaNoWriMo so I could throw myself headlong into something fresh. There is nothing horribly wrong with my story -- except that I already know what happens.

I wonder if it might be the weather. I have been watching things sprout and grow; the trees have opened up their leaves completely, and the grass is green, soft, and barefoot compatible. I feel kind of fresh and green myself.

So, boyfriends are the most wonderful and loving distractions I've found yet, but my lovely distraction is going to disappear for four weeks at the end of this month. If I refuse to mope about it, I can get a lot done. Should it be an editing month, or is it time for me to have my own private NaNoWriMo? I'll have to think on it.