Writing

It was a busy summer, a heart wrenching autumn and with each passing day I find myself a little deeper in Ceridwen's cauldron.  Yes, Samhain doth approacheth and the Dark Goddess is showing Her face!

This week I completed my last tasks for the online Goddess Group I've been hosting this past year.  It's been rewarding, frustrating, joyful, challenging, wonderful and a huge learning curve all wrapped in to one.  It's been a heckuva year and it's been a real privilege holding this virtual space for the group's participants and watching them grow and deepen their relationships with Goddess.  

But now it's time to move on.  I've got SO many ideas and SO many things in the works now, I do wonder how I will fit it all in!  But somehow I will!  

One of the things I'm doing is taking the feet first plunge into book writing by participating in this year's National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo.  If you subscribe to my page on Facebook, you've likely already seen my blurb about participating.  This year, I'm doing it! 

Mind you, it's taken me YEARS to get to this point.  I've always loved journal writing.  I've been doing it since I was a teenager, and I've always dreamed that one day I might write a book.  In my third year of priestess training, inspiration struck with a book idea.  Yay!  Maybe I might finally do it!  And I was excited by the idea of this and how it might all pan out.  It was a new adventure before me and I couldn't wait!

But then fear set in and I began to make excuse after excuse after excuse as to why I couldn't concentrate on writing my book. 

And the funny thing is, I'm self aware enough that I knew what I was doing.  I was putting obstacles in my own way.  I knew I was giving my power away and yet, I didn't know how to stop myself.   I didn't know where to begin.  I know so many people who write books and mostly the advice was, "Just start writing!"  Um, ok, but what about structure and layout and having my ducks in a row and all that?  It all just seemed like a mystery to me and like all these authors I know are actually harbouring these deep, mystical book writing secrets that I just couldn't figure out.  In fact, I STILL don't know where to begin and I still feel like there are deep, mystical book writing secrets I'm trying to figure out.

So what's changed?

Since June 2010, I've been using a little site called 750words.com.  I LOVE this site!  As mentioned before, I've been keeping journals for a long time.  With the advent of the Internet and Live Journal, I've had loads of online journals and diaries.  I've done the Artist's Way where I've tried to keep up the practise of Morning Pages and all that.  But it never seemed to be very consistent.  Something would happen and I'd stop and I'd go back to haphazardly writing whenever I felt like it.  

So with 750words.com, things changed.  I saw a link on, I think it was someone's Facebook and thought I'd give it a go.  It didn't take me long to fall in love with this site.  Who would think that such simple and silly things like daily nudges by email and attaining virtual badges as rewards for writing could finally spur one into action? 

Well, it does!  It's that inner competitive streak to achieve the gold star for doing well that fires the passion and IT WORKS.  Don't believe me?  In the 488 days since I began using 750words.com I've written 448,218 words (enough for a few novels or a couple of really big ones).  I average about 917 words per day.  I had a little break in my original streak, but to date, I've written every day for 410 days straight and I'm still going.  

Believe me now?  I thought so.

I've earned almost every badge they have.  My inner Girl Scout child is proud of that.  See how great I am and what a good Girl Scout for having so many badges!  Yes, I am awesome!

But three badges still elude me.  One is the Night Bat which is for people who consistently write at night.  I am unable to consistently write at night because by then, everyone is at home and it's too difficult to concentrate.  So I'll probably never have that badge and my inner Girl Scout child accepts this. Another one is the Space Bird badge.  That is for people who have written every day for 500 days in a row.  I'm 90 days away from achieving this badge and have every intention of doing so!

The third one, and the one that brings me back to the NaNoWriMo part, is the NaNo badge for those who participated in and completed NaNoWriMo.  

This badge was initiated last year.  I've known about NaNo for at least 10 or 11 years now, almost since the beginning.  I've had numerous friends (still do) who participate every year and love it.  

I've always resisted.  If I want to write a book, then why do I need a special month to do it in?  I can just write it!  Or so I thought.  I never have.  

I paled when I saw this new badge.  My inner Girl Scout child stamped her foot with a huff and proceeded to pout and then sulk because she knew that as long as headstrong adult Elle was hard core resisting, there was no way she'd ever earn this badge and she wouldn't have a nearly complete set.  Nope, she wouldn't.  

A couple weeks ago, I looked at the badges for some reason.  My inner Girl Scout child continued to be vexed about it.  And then something in my armour of resistance softened.  I went and looked at the NaNo site and thought, "Ok, maybe I should just do this.  I've written every day for 400 days.  Fifty thousand words in a month?  Piece of cake!  That's 1,666.666666666 words a day.  I CAN do this.  In fact, I pretty much do it already!"

Still needing some encouragement though, I turned to my youngest daughter.  She's 15.  She loves to write and does so often.  In fact, she's already written enough for a couple novels herself. 

I asked her if she'd like to do NaNo with me.  Her answer was a somewhat enthusiastic, "Yes!"

A little Maiden energy can be just the right medicine. 

I signed up.

And since then I've been pondering - 

WHAT DO I WRITE???

Well...the obvious choice would be the book I was inspired to write.  

"No, no.", I thought, "I can't write that and have it be crap.  What I want to write is too important to be crap and unorganised and all that.  No, I must think of something else and this, in turn, will inspire me to write the book I REALLY want to write."

More excuses.  I vacillated between excitement and worry.  In the end, I had a moment where I thought up an idea for something completely silly that would really work well.  It could be crap and no one would care because it would be something just for me.  And, oh yes, this will give me the further impetus to write the book I REALLY want to write.

My thoughts went on like this for a while.  And then, last week, I had a little lightening bolt moment.  

I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth (because that's what glamorous priestesses do), and I could hear my higher self asking, "WHY put your energy into writing a book that isn't what you REALLY want to write?  What is it that you're REALLY afraid of here?"  

I finished brushing my teeth and went to my computer to write my daily 750 words and I pondered these questions in my stream of consciousness.  Maybe it's from being a lawyer or maybe it's just my sometimes-monkey-mind or maybe it's my inner perfectionist or something, but I realised I was worried about not being accurate, not being comprehensive enough, not having the right elements, not having a good writing style, not having this or that.  In short - not being good enough.

Of course.  It was simple.  And I knew that I had to stop allowing fear to run my life and make my decisions and put obstacles in my way.  I knew - I have to write the book I REALLY want to write.  

I'd like to say that I've felt a peace come over me in making that decision or that somehow I feel more at ease about the whole thing, but I'd be lying through my freshly brushed teeth.  No, I'm still nervous and kind of scared and not at all feeling confident.  I'm still concerned about structure and layout and getting it all right somehow.  But here's what keeps me going - if it's crap, it's ok.  The NaNo people say so.  No one has to read it but me unless I choose otherwise.  My rational adult side says that even if it's crap, I will at least have a manuscript I can work on, re-write, edit and hone until I think it might be good enough for someone else to read, at which point there will probably be lots more re-writing and editing to do.  

And if it never sees the light of day?  It's ok.  When I had my idea, I was inspired to write it for my daughters.  I still am.  So if nothing else, I can give it to them and say, "Here you go.  This is for you."  That takes the pressure off a bit.  Or maybe not.  

So in 11 days, NaNo will begin and light a figurative fire under my bum to write the blasted book I've been talking about writing for far too long.  And the other book idea I had?  I still like it and think I might eventually like to write that still too.  Will I write two books at once?  I don't know that I'm that masochistic.  But I won't say no or never, just, "One book at a time and I'll see how I feel."  

I have a feeling I'm going to need a lot of Rescue Remedy and chocolate along with walks in the woods and kind, encouraging words from my writing buddy aka The Fearless Maiden Daughter Who Rises To The Challenge And Writes Her Own Bloody Novels Anyway Without NaNoWriMo, Thank You Very Much.  Oh, who am I kidding?  She'll tell me to get over myself and get on with it because she learned that type of fortitude from her mother.  And it'll be just what I need to hear, I'm sure.


*Ahem*


But I'm going to do this and somehow, I think it'll wind up being ok. And, oh yes, I WILL have that NaNo badge and my inner Girl Scout child is quite pleased at the thought.