NaNoWriYe

That's right, I've decided that I'm not going to finish my novel unless I go all NaNo on myself. So, henceforth, I will be doing at least 1,000 words a day. I figure, this is a really easy total to enforce. It doesn't take very long. It's just a little chunk. This is Novel Writing Year for me. The reason I feel an urgency to get back to writing every single day is that I've been frustrated lately with how little writing I've done in the last two weeks. I feel as if, in my head, I'm all ready to write, and then the actual sitting down doesn't materialize. I had some projects due for grad school this week, and the training for my job has pretty much been eating my life. Plus it was Mardi Gras. It's also a problem that Mike is so busy-- he's in his last semester of law school and is Editor in Chief of a journal that's trying to play Katrina catch-up by putting out two issues at once. So when he is home, of course I can't write, because I hardly ever see him.

I found myself thinking serious thoughts last night... about writing, about inspiration, about some stories I did in college in particular. Mostly about my weaknesses, one of which is a tendency toward the lack of revision. I am one of those writers whose work has been so self-edited before I let anyone see it, I almost resent it when someone tells me to rewrite. I thought about some things I maybe regret. The characters I was writing then (you can see some of the short stories I'm talking about here) were very close to me, probably too close. On the other hand, I want to bring more of that into my novel; just because it's a science fiction adventure doesn't mean I can't try harder to really, deeply get into my four characters. I also thought about a writer I was working with then, who was the first person to ever rip my work apart and tell me to start over, instead of just handing me an A. I learned that writing is hard and writing is being pushed.

I did finish a flash fiction story (at least, I think it's flash-- it's just under 1,000 words) at the laundromat Sunday night. I'm not sure I want to send it anywhere, because it's kind of sensitive. I don't know the etiquette of how long you should wait before submitting anything Katrina-themed. On the flip side, lots of people may be doing this and editors are already sick of it...

And Asimov's has had one of my stories for two months. Can't they just reject me already so I can get on with it? This is the part of the writing process with which I am not patient enough.