Do Text Messages Count?

NaNo Date 24
Time 1013 PST
Location: Breezy California desert oasis
Companions: Felines, Voices in my head

Nano, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the USS Have I Lost My Damn Mind. My mission: To create conflict and resolution while integrating plausible story lines and fulfilling character development. My nemesis: the romance genre, combined with the wicked forces of cruel daily word counts. Together, with voices in my head and furry feline companions, we boldly go where my word count has never gone before. 50,000 words in 30 days!

My journey began strong 24 NaNo days ago. Hope filled the tips of my fingers as they plucked at the back lit letters on my Sony Vaio keyboard. We were hopeful. We were bright-eyed with ideas, even though we only knew the beginning and the end. We strove for success one word at a time.

We were naive.

NaNo date 24. We are exhausted, fingers calloused, wrists aching. Our once bright eyes now scream out for daily doses of Visine, searching blindly for reading glasses tucked away last Christmas. The beginning has passed, while the middle is seemingly endless in its pursuit of a climax. One plot twist!!! The voices in my head scream for one miserable plot twist. They bicker now and conspire to side with a lesser word count.

Why did I take on this task? I was naive.

But I plow forward, wondering if I could somehow fit this blog into my story to increase my word count. Does that signature I wrote on my check count? How about text messages? I write a lot of those. Facebook updates? Tweets? So many words wasted away from my daily goal. Alas, there are only 6 NaNo days left in this journey. I beg my characters to stay with me, to keep the journey just six more days. Together we will carve our way passed the middle, run to the top of the climax, and dance around the plot twist, sprinting through bubbles and rainbows toward the end.

Until then, send words … I am afraid we are losing hope.

Picking up the Pieces

I realize how much I miss writing after a severe hiatus to pursue an advancement in my career. People have asked why I don’t pursue writing full time. My answer is always the same: when writing supports my family is when I can write full time. My status in life has changed little in the year I have been away, save for a few different things: I now covet a Baccalaureate in Nursing from Grand Canyon University and I am single. I’ve learned a few things on my journey to this day: I am stronger than I think I am. I can only multitask so much. And when life happens my true passion suffers.
After being away from my craft for so long I found just how easy it was to walk away. With a manuscript collecting dust for two years, and ideas dwindling, I was okay with being out of the game. In fact, it was comfortable. Without my head buried in a computer, fingers growing callous, and wrists feeling the strain of carpal tunnel, I found more time to do much of nothing.
Once school was completed in July my time became wide open and I vowed to tinker with some ideas. That never happened. Writing is comparable to getting in shape; it’s hard to get into a routine, but once in a routine each day is easier. Falling out of the routine means starting from scratch. Starting from scratch is painful, but I vowed to do it.
For the first year in my life, I jumped on the NaNoWriMo wagon. If I’m going to get back in shape might as well go all out. The last novel I completed was in 2012, it sat in editing limbo falling victim to the time constraints of higher education. My first exercise at hand was to get that off my desk. Second was to run through many ideas I had jottedd down over the years and pick one. Third was to create a NaNo account. Fourth was to open my computer back up on November first. I’m back! I’m back and I’m loving every minute. Here’s to writing a novel before I head back into the education system for 18 more months.