NaNoWriMo! coming soon...

It's that time of year again, and I'd really like to just switch gears and switch all my creative juices over to telling a story. We reminded Daphne tonight that it's coming up.

I have a vague idea about a story that I think might be fun to tell. It's based on a nightmare I had a month or so ago that, from a waking perspective, mostly just seems like a cheesy old horror movie.

Then again, Stephen King made a very lucrative career out of those. I don't have any interest in trying to replicate all the cocaine he did during his "glory years," but I really don't believe that makes you any more creative.

I know the Grateful Dead disagree with me, but they aren't a role model I consider very enticing either.

The problem is, I don't really have any creative output left.

NaNoWriMo is a marathon that really requires hours a day. You can slip behind a bit and catch up on weekends. And there are amazing people who crank out the entire thing in one sitting...then go on to reproduce that output night after night.

I simply cannot type that fast. Well, OK, I *can* type that fast. But I really need to spend a little time thinking about what I'm typing. It feels like cheating when I ditch my story to do things like write this blog post. It's all fair game, but it just doesn't feel kosher.

I fight hard to get an hour a day to myself to work on some sort of personal project. It's the piece of my daily TODO list that I fail to accomplish the most. Well, second-most. Guitar practice is the one that slips the most (as in basically never happens). It's something I need desperately, and I'm trying to come to grips with the basic reality that I simply will not have this luxury for the next few years.

I'm starting to understand why my father spent pretty much all his spare time tinkering around in his workshop. It's not that he didn't like us (well, I've gotten the impression that he didn't like his wives all that much, and I'm delighted that I didn't screw up that one). I think it might have been more of a "I'm doing dangerous things, and you'll screw it up anyway if you try to be involved."

When Mal wakes up from a nap and wants to play with my laptop, I think I almost feel that sort of frustration. I'm obviously not worried about the table saw slicing off his fingers, of course. But he gets pretty destructive with laptops.

I'd like to let him play with mine. Last time I did, the battery died. Totally not his fault, but the timing left me a little gun-shy. Laura let him play with hers today, commenting that she needs a replacement. I've been trying to convince her to replace that clunker since about 2 weeks after she bought it, but she's attached to the stickers.

And that's all just dodging the point. Nanowrimo is really a social thing. I'd either have to drag Mal out to events where I'd spend the entire time shepherding him instead of writing (and I don't really have anything to write), or I'd have to spend a huge chunk of the month away from my family.

That isn't an option. I spend too much time away from them already.

I just don't think we're in a position where I can seriously pretend that I have the sort of spare time this requires. Heck...I've been trying to find time to finish one book since we moved here in June. Admittedly, it's a really long book, and I've read a couple of others for work in the meantime, but...

It crushes my soul a bit to admit this.

Nanowrimo helped me get through one of the most difficult times of my life. I sat in a back bedroom writing while my father watched one of the last basketball games he'd ever get to see with the rest of his family. I really thought that I'd made the commitment to myself that I would finally start writing seriously and regularly.

I just have to remember that I'm working on something much more important.