NaNoWriMo is over, and I ‘won’ it with ease*. Writing many, many words has never been an issue with me. In fact, when I used to write for ABLC, someone coined the phrase ‘pulling a Minna’ for writing any article over 2,000 words long. That’s like a sneeze for me,** so I don’t do NaNoWriMo the normal way. For those who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, basically, you write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November, which breaks down to 1,667 words a day. I can write that in roughly an hour and a half if I really concentrate, so I usually set a different goal for NaNoWriMo. This year, my aim was to write 5,000 words a day. I’ve had the same goal in the past, and I’ve met that goal twice, I think (out of two times). It was feasible without being terribly burdensome, and I managed to meet my personal goal with ten thousand words to spare. I finished one novel, started a second one, decided it was a crap a third of the way through, and started a third–which is much better than the second, thank you for asking. It’s still crappy right now as is the first one, but at least they are both down on paper.
Really, that’s the reason I did NaNoWriMo this year. I haven’t written much of anything in the last year or so, and I wanted to kick-start my writing again. Once I stopped blogging regularly, I wasn’t disciplined enough to to write daily on my own. I’m externally motivated, which is a bad thing, but once I fully commit to something, I’m all in–which is a good thing. This is the reason I’ve decided to commit to posting a blog post every day in December. I miss blogging, and I was quite good at it, which is a full-blown brag and not a humble-brag at all. I had a passion for it, which helps, but I also did my research thoroughly and edited the shit out of my posts. Editing my fiction is not my strong point, which is ironic since it’s what I do for a living (editing, not fiction, though). For whatever reason, I have a harder time chopping up my fiction than I do my blog posts. I think it’s because while I can be flamboyant in my posts and many of them are my opinion rather than hard facts, My fiction, on the other hand, is a delicate flower that blooms in the hothouse that is my mind. It’s my baby, and I am pretty protective of it. Don’t get me wrong: I do edit my fiction–just not as rigorously as I do my blog posts. If there’s a phrase I like or a scene of which I am enamored, I am loath to excise it, even if it doesn’t fit in the piece overall.
But I digress, as is my wont. My point is, and I do have one, that while I love writing, I don’t do it nearly as often as I should. Therefore, I used NaNoWriMo as a way to make myself write, and now that it’s over, I want to continue the writing train. For some reason, now I have this song stuck in my head. “Come on write it, train. Write it!” “I think I can; I think I can!” And, because I know myself well, I know that I have to give myself goals in order not to allow myself to fall back into…well, not writing at all. So. My declaration is that I will write and publish a post every day.*** If I don’t write a post, I will write 5,000 words of fiction instead. The latter will have to be on the honer system because I’m not going to publish unedited fiction–no one wants to see that.
The bottom line is that i don’t want to allow myself to slide back into not writing. I don’t feel alive if I’m not writing. I have posts/stories/images running through my head all the time, and when I don’t write them down, I feel stifled. I have many reasons why I quit blogging, some of which I’ll explore in future posts, but I’m ready to start it up again. Seeing all the blogs proliferating all over the internet has spurred on my own desire for a not-so-noble reason;there is a lot of shit out there. My writing is better than a lot of it, so I might as well put it out there. It’s how I feel about writing in general–there are a lot of shitty books being read, so why not put my own not-quite-as-shitty writing on display? I wish I could say that isn’t a major motivation for me to press on, but it is. And, at the end of the day if it keeps me writing, it’s not the worst motivation in the world.
i love to write; I’m pretty damn good at it; I have a perspective that isn’t often seen/heard/read in other venues. These are all decent reasons to start blogging again, and I’m going to have to remind myself of that on a regular basis because I’m prone to self-negativity and to thinking that I have nothing to offer. Spending too much time on social media exacerbates that feeling because there is a sizable portion of people who are committed to stridently condemning anyone who thinks the slightest bit differently than they do–and I’m not talking only about Republicans. I won’t go into that now because I have to save something for future blog posts, but the more I read the screaming tweets about how you were a horrible person if you didn’t think X, Y, or Z, the more inhibited I felt about blogging. I have stopped talking politics on Twitter for the most part because of this, and that’s fine. I don’t mind restricting my Twitter use to seeing how my friends are doing, RT’ing cute pictures of cats, and making bon mots. What I do mind, however, is that I stopped writing about it at all. That didn’t stop me from having strong opinions about subjects, however; it just made me reluctant to share said opinions.
I can’t live like this. I’m tired of biting my tongue and of keeping my opinions to myself and a select few friends. Part of my issue is that the same people who demand that other people respect their opinions and validate their ways of life, do not afford others the same respect. I can’t help but notice that the people scolding others for not being properly sensitive about this or that are completely insensitive themselves. But, again, I will save that for another post because this is supposed to be an introductory post, not a ‘fuck all y’all’ post. It’s hard for me to tell the difference sometimes. Back to the point. I have strong opinions, and being cowed into keeping them to myself doesn’t change them one whit. We all know that yelling at someone is the best way to get that person to double down in defensiveness, and yet, on Twitter, people employ that tactic all the damn time. I know it’s partly to pump up their brands,but the holier-than-thou attitude is a complete turn-off.
So. My promise to myself is that I will write a post a day. i will get around my sometimes-crippling anxiety by telling myself that nobody reads my shit, anyway, so what’s the harm? I will write until I run out of opinions, which will be never. If you’re new to my site, welcome! Make yourself comfy because you’re going to be here a while. If you’d like a sample of my writing, here are some of my best posts ever (as judged subjectively by me). I write about a diversity of topics, including sex (and food!), idiotic abortion restrictions, abortion and a major asshole, abortion, Planned Parenthood, and Komen for the Cure, Hobby Lobby and I wrote a hell of a lot about abortion, video game culture, Jerry Sandusky,**** depression, and just look through my archives. I’ve written plenty. PLENTY, and I’m beginning to become self-conscious at tooting my own horn.
For all you old-timers out there who have been reading my shit for as long as I’ve been writing it, thank you. I wouldn’t still be writing without your support. So! Let’s get this month started by posting this post as imperfect as it is. I’m back, bitchez!
*I don’t say this as a humble-brag, even though it really is.
**I cannot emphasize enough that I take no pride in the fact that I can vomit up words endlessly. It’s something I was born with, and it’s something I’m working on honing.
***Day meaning sometime after I awake and sometime before I go to sleep. Which probably means around three or four in the morning, if we’re going to be honest with each other.
****I am most proud of this series. I put roughly a hundred hours into researching and writing this series, and while it took a deep toll on me, it was worth it.
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