Ever since I quit my job last August I have been attempting to be more diligent with my writing. For a long time I let writing take a backseat to everyday life. I stopped making myself sit down every day in front of the computer and put words down.
It didn’t used to matter to me whether the words for anything specific. I just needed to write, every day. Sometimes I would type out a random scene in my head that didn’t have a beginning or end in sight, they were just words that pushed their way to the front of my mind to be written. Other days, I would be up to my eyeballs in whatever story I was in the middle of at the time.
But the habit always stayed the same. And that was to write. I was always writing. Or thinking about writing. When the words really screamed at me (or I was really bored), I found myself even writing during work hours.
Somewhere along the way, my habits curled up and died without warning. There wasn’t even a funeral. Just one day I woke up and realized that I had lost that inner voice that had always played in the back of my mind, which is really sad. That voice was truly entertaining for many years and kept me sane during all of my insane moments. (Not that I had many, I’m totally sane….ish)
So when it was decided that I was going to leave the corporate world behind, I told myself that I was totally going to get back into writing. Then a few months passed and then I remembered I had to actually turn the computer on to write something. Oops… So then November came along and I tried my hand at NaNoWriMo. Something I had always wanted to try but had never thought I could handle.
What is it? 30 days, 50,000 words and hard core self discipline. Writing a novel in a month seems scary. Uh, because it is! A week in and I was like WT* have I gotten myself into?!?! Week two and I had the flu. Week three and my in laws decided to come into town to visit early. By week four I had finished early. I submitted my 50,834 words two days before Thanksgiving. (I never would have crossed that finish line had my husband not pushed me as hard as he did, so really he deserves like most of the credit!) Then I needed a break. So a week off of writing turned into a month. Then two months. Even my New Year Resolutions couldn’t seem to get any words out.
Finally spring arrived and I started planning my garden and my husband made a comment one day, I don’t even remember exactly what he had said, but he thought I had quit writing. Like for good. My head spun at the reality that he could think I could ever quit writing! I mean writing is like breathing, you do it without thinking. Except for the fact that he was almost right, I had quit writing. The stories were still playing out in my head as before, but I hadn’t put them down on paper in months. Well how can you be a writer if you aren’t really writing? Just thinking about what needs to be written, or what you want written. That isn’t writing, that is imagining. Well I don’t think that can truly be considered much of anything.
I can see me introducing myself ten years from now, “Hi, I am XX, I am a dreamer. Nice to meet you.” That’s kind of depressing. I don’t want to just be a dreamer anymore. I want to be a writer. I want the dreams to get read. So the only way to do that is to sit my butt down in front of the computer and WRITE!
So I did. And it was amazing. Fireworks were lit, angelic voices sang. Ok well the show played out that way in my head anyway. For the first time in a long time that I am actually excited about my story and I can’t wait to get it out of my head.
I have decided to enter CampNaNoWriMo on April 1st and I am going to write my Anti Fairy Tale. And then after that is over, I am going to keep writing.
Why?
Because I am more than just a dreamer, I am a writer!