It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything
for this blog. For most of October I
have no excuse, just the usual inattention/laziness/procrastination. During November, however, I was otherwise
occupied with another National Novel Writing Month, which I am not a little bit
proud to say I aced with flying colors.
Usually with NaNo, I finish on the very last day, with maybe fifty words
to spare above the 50,000 mandated by the challenge. This year, I completed not only the
challenge, but also my personal goal, with almost a week left in the month.
As
with most of my past NaNo’s, I was working on my joy, my frustration, and my
obsession, the Youngest series. It’s a
sci-fi post-apocalyptic series based on a sentient machine that takes the form
of a human to examine the species that created it. Release, the first, was completed a year and
a half after my college graduation, with Renewal following soon after. I started the third, whose title I struggled
with for ages, last year for NaNo, and this year my goal was to finish it. I have done so, with over a hundred
single-spaced pages, not to mention 60,000 words. The book is a monster, sixty pages longer
than its two predecessors, and I am well aware that it needs a lot of
editing. But I’m very happy to have it
completed, and happier to have decided on a title that might finally work:
Revelation.
I’ve
been writing in this form for many more years than I’ve been participating in
NaNo, of course. Since I was in middle
school and discovered all the uses of a word processor, I’ve been hammering out
novels. Some of them I cringe to remember,
of course, but some I still have and occasionally will go back through when I
need a chuckle.
More
of a novelty to me is this form of writing, that of documenting my life and my
thoughts for others’ perusal. I have now
been blogging for five years, which is somewhat shocking. I do have a tendency to start
projects and never finish them. It’s
taken a lot of self-discipline and elbow-grease to get three novels into a
series, and I have my own fascination with the world and the characters to
thank for that (and, maybe, three or four NaNo challenges). Many others of my ideas have not been so lucky.
Blogging
is different. I kept a diary for a hot
second when I was a kid, but the diary quickly morphed into something less
straightforward, a ‘rambling journal’ in which I collected ideas, poems,
drawings, and other scraps of information.
This was easier to keep up with, and it was more interesting to me than
my own life. I thought, who would ever
want to read about me? Sometimes I still feel that way. But I’ve grown a lot since I was that little
college senior, just beginning to wonder if writing really could be a thing for
the rest of my life. And with my blog now,
I can look back at that growth, see the ways my life has changed and remember
things that happened along the way. For
that reason, I’m glad I have it, even if no one else ever reads or cares. Writing for me is a good enough excuse.
That’s
why I’ve decided to spend this week looking back at some of my work. Each day this week I will take a look at what
I’ve written, looking at events in my personal life, passing thoughts I have
discussed, and responses to real world events.
I will try to see how I’ve evolved (or maybe devolved) and study my own
voice. There will also, of course, be
links to some of my favorites from each year, the ‘greatest hits,’ as it
were. And on Saturday, I will discuss
how I intend to continue.
For
those of you who are reading—and here I address myself, too, in some future nostalgia—thank
you for coming this way with me. Thank
you for taking an interest, and for caring.
And thank you for musing with me along the wandering way.
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