The Sunday Salon: NaNoOhWell

So, like many of the masses, I was not successful in my NaNoWriMo ambition of completing a novel in a month (a novel of at least 50,000 words). I clocked in at about 21,808 before calling it quits.

When I think about it, though, I'm actually not really disappointed, for a couple of reasons:
1} I'm still not sure where exactly I want to go with the novel. Vomiting out all of those words was at times only frustrating because I felt like I was swimming upstream to a destination I didn't know about.
2} As was my qualm before getting started, I still haven't done all of my research, and this is a book that needs some research. I think in some places I can just insert it in there, but I will be able to write a much fuller story once I have everything in place, I think.
3} There are some other things I want to write. I went from finishing nothing in the last five years to trying to write a novel. While I am still working on my novel, I'm also trying to do some shorter, less complex things for practice.
4} I have started the habit of writing daily, and that is what I needed most of all. If I can keep to that, I don't need to write a novel in a month. I can just keep working.

However, for those of you who were successful, congratulations! I think it is really impressive that you were able to do it! I hope to join your ranks someday. For now, slow and steady for me. :)

Sunday Salon: The Silmarillion plus ramblings

So, my intention was to post on The Silmarillion this evening, as it is close to the end of the month. I want to say a few things, but I have been watching the following video a lot this evening and I wanted to share it with everyone. The speaker, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, is one of my personal heroes, someone who is very inspiring to me.



I have been thinking lately about how I spend my time. For the last five years or so, I have spent unholy amounts of time studying and trying to get perfect grades. In some ways this has been rewarding. I was accepted into my program after I graduated from my first degree. I am hoping my academic achievements will help me get my feet into a real job once I graduate. However, I've lately been thinking there is also much more to life than this, and it has made me want to make some changes in two different ways. The first isn't really related to this video -- I just want to spend more time helping other people instead of focusing on my own life. The second change is directly related to the video -- I have felt this strong, intense need to be creative lately. When I was in middle school and high school, I was at the piano bench for hours a day. I also spent quite a bit of time writing, even though I never finished or published anything (except for on those poetry.com type websites that try to get you to buy a big book with your poems published in them). When I switched to a highly academic major, I lost some of that. I'm not saying that neuroscience wasn't fulfilling -- I loved what I learned. I remember sitting in the library at midnight absolutely thrilled with the elegance of the biochemistry of learning, emotion, thought processes, movements. (I also remember many other nights sitting in the library at midnight wishing for sedation, of course). But for me, it wasn't a field that allowed me to be creative. I know others who have been able to do research and put together amazing studies and projects in this field, but my mind doesn't seem to run that way.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I am really looking forward to NaNoWriMo and the challenge to myself to bring this story that I've spent so much time thinking about into words. At the same time, I really want to still have the energy to give to the people around me. I feel like lately I get wrapped up in my personal projects and the things that I want to do and I forget that there are people I love that I want to take care of as well. So, if NaNoWriMo throws my life too off balance and I am not serving and loving people the way I should be, I am going to take a step back. All the same, I am excited for the opportunity it gives me to stretch my creativity more than I have tried to stretch it for a long time.

This post is getting long and full of feelings, but I want to wrap it up by tying this whole creativity idea into The Silmarillion (best of both worlds -- I do the post I planned and I get to torment you with all of my FEELINGS!). The beginning of The Silmarillion has a beautiful creation scene where several godlike beings known as the Valar break out in song, and their music encompasses everything in the world -- every beautiful thing, every emotion, every story. I love that imagery. One thing I am noticing in this reread is the beauty of the mythology that Tolkien has created.

Sunday Salon: NaNoWriMo

No, not those Canadian bars.

Last year, a few months into starting this blog, I heard of National Novel Writing Month -- the attempt to, in just thirty days, write a 50,000 word novel.

I used to write quite a bit. I had a little green notebook with a sparkly cover and I wrote poems about my Barbies and my stuffed animals in it. When I got a little older, I wrote poems about the boys I had crushes on. I started several different stories, although I never finished any of them unless they were assigned for class. In college, I won a writing award -- but it was for a research paper. My writing diminished and diminished, until I wasn't even really writing in a journal anymore. I decided I was a reader, not a writer. I was content to enjoy other people's stories, not my own.

But as I started blogging, making a point to do a little bit of writing every day, I started remembering the thrill of putting words and phrases together. I still considered myself not talented enough to actually write a story, but one day I found myself surreptitiously buying one of the black marbled composition books that I used to use in my high school creative writing class and scribbling in it every so often. A few months later, an idea for a story started percolating in my head.

I've tried and tried to write the scenes from this story, and I've gotten a few down. I've even bought a few books and done a little research. But I've never gotten very far, for a few reasons. First of all, I feel like all my research has to be done, but I am not even completely sure where the story is taking me. Secondly, I keep thinking to myself, "But I'm not very good! Why spend all that time on something that will probably never be published, will probably not come to anything?"

But six months later, I'm still thinking about that story. And so I've decided to make the jump and try to do this NaNoWriMo thing. I don't know if the story will turn into anything that anyone else will want to read. I don't know if it is even remotely plausible for me to try. But I'm realizing that at this point I don't have anything to lose. I don't have to show it to anybody -- I don't even have to finish if I end up feeling like it's a waste of my time. I need to mentally remove the guilt element and just try it. I'm used to only attempting things that I know I will be good at. I don't like trying things that I could fail at. I like security.

But hey, I can encrypt documents on my computer with a password, and at any rate, if I fail, I think I'll be in excellent company. So... NaNo on.