Day #250: Out of Words

 I love listening to the West Wing Weekly podcast...it's incredibly nerdy, but I've listened all the way through it a couple of times now (although way fewer times than I've actually watched the whole West Wing.) One of the things that is always fun is when Aaron Sorkin pops in. Something he said once really struck me...he was talking about how he kind of lives in a perpetual state of writer's block. Immediately after turning in an episode of TV, he says he always thinks he's written every single word he knows in every possible order and will never again be able to write another word.

Well, as a creative person, it's nice to say that you can relate to Aaron Sorkin.

It is Day 9 of NaNoWriMo. I went in with low expectations, because, well, 1) pandemic, 2) distance learning, 3) 2 children, 4) husband out of town for five days, and 5) have barely written anything all year. So my goals were: 1) write every day, 2) work on several things and count all the words from all of them, and 3) have fun. I was not in any way shape or form aiming for 50,000 words. I've done NaNoWriMo off and on since 2009 and this was the first time I ever went into it without a specific project and focus in mind.

Well, it's been fun and I have written every day, so it is going well, but leapfrogging from project to project does make for some pretty disjointed thinking, not to mention writing.

James and I have had fun with our picture book but haven't worked on it as much lately. I feel like we really need to finish it, or at least a good draft of it, in time to publish it for Christmas because he needs the sense of completion. It is harder than I thought it would be and also more fun.

I have done my daily poetry prompt since November 1 and have been enjoying it. I've been working on that poetry prompt book for 2 years now and it's hard to get into a groove and do it every day.

I just started my short story last night and I am really enjoying it. I'm trying to just write it and not think of its future too much, which is hard to do. I keep thinking...oh, man, this would make a great novel but I don't know how to get it there. I think I need to really focus on just writing it, for as long as it ends up being in rough draft form.

And then there's this blog which I've been neglecting. When I neglect it, which is often enough, it is almost always because I don't feel like I have anything to say or anything new to report. I think right now I've been avoiding it because it feels like there's too much...too much going on, too much in the world, too much in my brain and I can't get it out. It is a new and different kind of writers block for me.

I started the blog with the idea of recording this time for posterity as well as having a place to get out all my thoughts while this is happening and lately I feel I am failing at both. I don't have words to record the big things. The election was huge. We are going to have a woman of color as vice president, that's big. It feels like the country is ready for a shift, that's big. A friend of mine won an election and is launching a new career in politics, that's big as well. 

It's the small things that I really find myself focusing on, though. I don't have words for the big ones, but watching trains with Max at the Snoqualmie train museum...snuggling with the two of them and eating pumpkin pancakes while their dad was out of town, having James tell me a goodnight story about a planet like the moon where aliens and humans live together in harmony...more than elections or rising COVID numbers or anything else, those are the things that fill my day. They aren't newsworthy. But it's helpful to write them down once in awhile and remember they are happening.

Media consumption: Josh is home now so we need to watch more Great British Baking Show. I'm still dabbling with How I Met Your Mother, which is ultimate TV comfort food for me. Haven't been reading NEARLY as much. Yesterday I started Show Me a Sign, a middle grade historical fiction about a Deaf community living on Martha's Vineyard at the turn of the 19th century. It's hard to get into but interesting so far. And I need to start my book group book.

Today I'm grateful that Josh is home safe, for alll the snuggles from my kids, for NaNoWriMo, for poetry, for a good night's sleep, and for love. In all its forms.