That’s my true story! Which is a big deal if you knew me from the days when I could turn out potentially tens of thousands of words a week, and then knew me during the time I have been blocked in the most worstest way. It began practically MOMENTS after being published and didn’t let up until the second day of NinerWriMo. It lasted for five years.
I thought I might have some fantastic advice or really sage words for you guys, or some like, words of wisdom that could help everyone with this literary journey we’re on. In reality, all I have is quivering excitement that I got when I realized I am still writing. This is huge for me. I hope it’s turning out to be huge for someone else who has been blocked, or for someone who thought they couldn’t even get close to a novel and now have half a novella or something.
Unfortunately, around the same time NaNo started, so did my new job, so I haven’t been able to be nearly as interactive as I’d really hoped. Thankfully, posts keep appearing left and right from people with questions and ideas and that’s so cool that yall don’t even need me for this because, surprise, I actually need you guys! If not for this great community and the enthusiastic response to NinerWriMo, I might not be getting through Novel: A Novel (actual current title) in the herky-jerky but still typing-words-that-advance-toward-the-ending way, so thank you for being as awesome as I’d hoped to be.
Aside from that, I keep referring to myself because I hope you take this as either an inspirational or a cautionary tale: remember the time Mouse didn’t fiction for five years? If I can do this, through my veil of toxic perfectionism and inability to even let a typo pass by me on a first draft, I believe probably anyone can do this!
Though I really am a bunch of words behind, I don’t even feel bad about it because the story is going on. I hope to make it to 50k by the 30th but if I don’t I’ll still be doing pretty darn good by my previous standard of “Must throw away any words unless they are perfect. PERFECT!” I’m considering myself in recovery.
All that being said, I’m happy NinerWriMo is going off better than I’d even imagined. I’ve met so many cool new people, and read some fantastic stories. It’s wonderful that this idea I conceived of hastily over drinks with Myseri turned out to be a bigger and greater thing than just emergency writing jumpstart for me. Thanks for joining me and may we all cheer our successes come the 30th of November!
(I hope some of you new folks will stick around for Thursday Tales. I’m going to. Mostly.)
