In the library again

They're doing construction on the Boulder Library, so every now and then a huge BOOM comes from the ceiling. Just another thing trying to distract me from my writing. I am writing about my protagonist's cool older aunt, who lives in Mendocino on a neglected vineyard that she and her husband bought for a song back in the 70's when much of the wine crop was wiped out from phylloxera. The aunt is going to be Sarah's mentor and guide in her journey back to herself. It's fun to imagine what this old woman is like. She's an old hippie: irreverent, obstinate, light-hearted, spiritual. She's a crone coming to terms with her mortality and limited time left on the earth.

Well, not to give too much away...

My phone interview yesterday went pretty well I think. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll get another call for a second interview. If I do, I'll feel better about sharing details in my blog. Until then, well, just keep fingers crossed. I think I'd really like to work here, even if I harbor ambivalence about the commitment. First things first.

It looks like we have 2 more beautiful fall days in this amazing streak of weather, then the cold will be upon us. Last night we all (Mark, Pete, Anna Kate and I) went for a walk on the mesa under a waning moon. As we came back home we were treated to the sight and sound of a mating pair of Great Horned owls. The female was sitting on the telephone pole near our house, and the male was perched on a vent chimney on our roof. They hooted back and forth while we watched. With binoculars we could see the white markings on the male's chest...spectacular.

Catharsis

I was wondering whether writing a semi-autobiographical novel would be cathartic. I think I knew that it would be, but the reason I didn't write yesterday was that I was triggered right back to a fairly dark place in my life, just through writing the words. My novel is about a young woman who emerges from a 5-year stint in a religious cult to find that she doesn't know who she is, what she wants from life or what she can offer the world. It's a dark, deep void of unknowing from which she spends the rest of the novel clawing her way back.

Kind of like someone you know, right?

Well, it put me in a tailspin for a bit. My protagonist, Sarah, is just beginning to realize what happened to her, and she's pretty depressed at the moment. I actually thought about stopping the book because it's so painful to look back and write about what I lived through.

Then I had a thought that maybe, by writing Sarah's eventual and successful healing process, I could vicariously enjoy that as well. Sarah's not going to be 53 when the book ends, but she will be in a much better place than she is now. And I get to say how that goes. That's the very cool thing about writing a story; I get to play God and make stuff happen to my characters just the way I want it to happen.

So I'm off to work, another very early day (leaving the house at 5:40) so I can get breakfast on early for the guests of the inn. It's a corporate group and they have early meetings, so I've been going in early these past few days. Hearing them talk and laugh at their in-house meetings makes me so jealous for being part of a team that's working toward common goals. I miss my professional life, albeit my "from-a-distance," rosy professional life, not the one I used to bitch about constantly. I guess what I mean is that I long for a healthy, productive professional life where I can share day to day life challenges and successes with like-minded people. To that end, I finally have an interview this Thursday with a place that potentially can give me that. More on this later.

In the library

There's something organic and edgy about sitting at a public library computer to write. A stong odor of humanity in various stages of cleanliness permeates the area, and there's a sense of being exposed to lives and germs that you never have to deal with if only use your computer at home. Tinny music seeps out of earbuds from the guy next to you, and more than a few other patrons try to suppress hacking coughs.

I'm uncomfortable and yet there's part of me that is more motivated to write here. Possibly because I don't have access to my refrigerator or sofa, my chores and my dog. Fewer material comforts to distract me, and a feeling that I'm here to work. I also feel strangely comforted by being just one more of the anonymous library patrons, who for one reason or another is here rather than in my cozy house using my own personal computer. I'm no one special here, and that seems to take some pressure off me to write anything of any brilliance or significance.

I'm fighting the feeling of being a fraud, of thinking that I have any right to write a novel, much less write one in a month. The fighting looks like me finding any other thing to do besides write. I'm comforted by remembering an essay by E.B. White in which he writes about finding countless trivial things to do rather than write: straighten the area rugs and pictures on the wall, for example.

Writing is hard. Channeling my imagination onto the page is hard. Keeping my inner critic at bay is hard. I appreciate the words of encouragement I've gotten from my blog posts, the confidence that others have expressed in my ability to do this. I'm not sure why people are confident in my, but I'm going to draw on that when I feel lacking in that department myself.

Fall Back

Our computers and hand helds went ahead and turned the clocks back on their own last night. If only we could do that at will whenever we wanted to add another hour to our day or have a do-over for an hour squandered. Or to relive a spectacular hour. Nope, we only get to relive the hour that the clock managers want us to relive, which always happens to be midnight on a Saturday. So we get to relive the crap on Saturday Night Live...?

I am constantly relieved that my novel-in-a-month is unfettered by any requirement of quality. I am writing words that are loosely connected by time and action, but that might be it. And I find that I'm writing almost autobiographically, which is interesting. I've always been comfortable with journaling, so maybe it makes sense that my attempts at fiction would initially read like an adolescent journal. Introspective, narcissistic, trite. Oh well, quantity marches on.

It's another beautiful day in Boulder County. We (Mark and I and our houseguests, nephew Pete and his girlfriend Anna Kate) are planning to hike to a place where we can see the snow-capped mountains of the Continental Divide then descend to a brewery for the Broncos/Patriots game. I took the afternoon off from work just for the occasion.

The leaves are mostly off the trees now, but with the brilliant radiant sun beating down you'd never know it was early November. The sunshine is by far one of the best things about Boulder.

November 1, 2014

So far today I wrote 1763 words, 96 more than my target! I think it's total shit, but the freeing thing is that for NaNoWriMo it's about quantity over quality. It's about the act of writing, about sitting one's butt in a chair for long enough to write 1667 words a day for 30 days. I don't know anything about character development, plot, symbolism, theme, or even the process of writing. I don't know anything about voice or style and that's perfectly ok.

I told my inner critic and editor to take a vacation, and I haven't seen her today except early on when she peeked her head around the corner to where I was sitting staring at the blank screen to tell me it would be ok if I decided not to do this. I told her to get the fuck out and I started writing.

I am aware that I'm going to have to work on my schedule so I have time to write every day. I'm a morning person, and so if I've been responsible the night before (not too much wine) I can get up at 5 and write for an hour and a half on days when I work in the afternoons or on days when I don't have to go to work. This is not going to work if I leave my writing schedule to chance. It's soooo much easier to not write than it is to write.

I'm lucky to have a loving husband who wants to support my desire to do this crazy thing, and I thank him for this.

1763 words shows me that this is going to be a challenge. Let's go.