If you followed this blog in November, you know I participated in NANOWRIMO, the annual event where people write 50,000 words in 30 days. There are no gold medals for the winners, no hefty book contracts, no fanfare. Just the personal satisfaction of putting one’s writing first. You have to do that to find the time to write 1,667 words a day.
I’ve done NANOWRIMO three times before and always managed to meet the goal. This time I modified the program to finish writing a book I’d started years ago that needed to be bulked up (That is probably not a literary term) by about 15,000 words or 500 words a day. What could sound easier?
I didn’t get it done.
There is no self-recrimination here; rather it’s interesting to me that the lesser writing goal was the greater challenge. Perhaps it seemed so doable that I didn’t take it seriously. Perhaps working on a project for years makes it psychologically okay to work on it another year or two, instead of only a month. Or perhaps the fact that my cleaning lady of seven years quit via an email and left me dusty and cobwebby and bereft had something to do with it.
Regardless, I’m back to blogging in real time and still working on what I’d like to call my magnum opus. My other magnum opus these days is to keep a clean house.