Journaling during NaNoWriMo
Nov. 1st, 2004 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramos
Photo: Yesterday at 4:30 p.m. on Highway 401, westbound from Bowmanville after taking Brenna home.
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Last year while working on Tendril Through Cyberspace for NaNoWriMo, I gave myself a break from my handwritten morning pages. At the end of the month, with my novel finished, I sunk into a slump. I had fulfilled a major achievement, and I had no writing habit securely established to replace that daily endeavour.
This year I don't intend to give myself that kind of a break. I can't afford another slump, emotional or creative, at the beginning of December. Because December slides so easily in January, and January into February. It's a drab time of year, with dark spirits in the wind, and a soul would rather curl up under a warm blanket and eat cookies for three months that start on something new. At the beginning of December, I don't want to face setting up a routine again.
For the past two months I have had an excellent writing routine. It has flourished even while my mind was raking the bottom of spiritual oceans, percolating through the mud. This autumn has been far from brilliant for me, emotionally. And yet I have kept a more rigorous writing practice than I can remember. This has been good for me.
It's going to keep being good for me through November and December. Which means I have a lot of writing ahead of me.
It isn't a huge time commitment. My three daily morning pages take about 20 minutes to write. These daily posts on LiveJournal are, by definition, restricted to 15 minutes. But it is a considerable investment of creative energy. And these journal posts can suck up a lot of extraneous time: selecting and editing a photo, for example. And afterwards I generally allow myself some limited editing of the written post, but the process can take a lot more time in tinkering than the actual writing. I'm not going to be able to afford that during the month of November. So some of these posts might come out reading rather rough.
But come December 1, I still want this habit intact. In fact, if anything has to give, it will be NaNoWriMo itself. But I don't think that will happen.
Part of the reason for this is the important therapeutic role my daily writing routine provides, a benefit I can't afford to neglect. When the mind is absorbed in a big project like NaNoWriMo, it's easy to put personal issues on the back burner. My journaling will ensure that I continue to approach my life mindfully. Ideally, this will propel me into new and better creative projects a month from now.
Some things will have to give. Undoubtedly I will be unable to keep up with reading LJ as much as I like to. Please bear with me. Life will return to normal in a few weeks. We all go through varying seasons of the soul.
On that note, I want to mention the distinct salubrious effect I'm enjoying from the simple fluorescent light fixture Daniel gave me. I thought it might be too much to hope for when my mood started to shift a week ago. But now it seems safe to say that I'm no longer depressed.
I almost feel good enough to go out and look for a job! But at the moment I have another commitment before me, and I hope the daily routine I keep will help me feel just as good a month from now.
Danny took the day off and I spent the afternoon strolling around Toronto's Harbourfront with him, departing the city at 5. I haven't set my fingers to the first line of NaNo yet. I plan to put in a couple hours this evening.
Behind the cut:
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djjo, bitterlawngnome and Brenna in costume Saturday night.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 06:29 pm (UTC)~paul
You'd be more scared if you could see more of my pants!
Date: 2004-11-01 07:04 pm (UTC)<spice girl mode> I need a fan...
Date: 2004-11-02 05:46 am (UTC)Thank you, that made my morning! And the pants are truly hideous, but I couldn't pass them up.
I found out they glow in black light going bowling in them one Halloween. Big mistake! Tight pants, can't bend to bowl - lousy scores.
Hugs! Danny
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Date: 2004-11-01 07:36 pm (UTC)be well
connor
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Date: 2004-11-02 08:01 am (UTC)I'm revelling in Brenna's fabulous look, and the sight of Bill in one of his bitterlawngnome hats, knitted by Danny with oracular magnetism no doubt.
Grrroovy!
Shimmer
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Date: 2004-11-02 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 01:23 pm (UTC)