Tuesday, November 2, 2010

NaNoWriMo

After more than a year away from writing, I'm finally making the dive back into my novel during National Novel Writing Month. It's been a crazy 12+ months, which have included separation and divorce, purchasing a new home and moving, getting my kids settled into their new dual-home life, starting a full-time job, and launching my daughter into her college career.

When I first began to rebuild my new life, I wasn't sure which parts of my old life I'd take with me. I knew I'd be working. I hoped I'd be dating. Half the time I'm single parenting. I knew something of my old life would have to go. So I worked on settling those things that had to happen, and waited to see where I was drawn. Would it be the writing? The quilting? The crafting? New and different volunteer opportunities? Or would none of these creative outlets call to me.

But as I've relaxed into the routine of my new life, I've missed my writing friends. I've missed the challenges of building a new world, and exploring the characters that appear on my pages. I find that of all the things that used to fill my old life, the writing still calls to me.

And so here I am, November 2010, wondering how one picks up on a novel I haven't looked at in at least 14 months. I had hoped that, in the weeks leading up to November, I would have had time to read through what I'd written before, review my notes, think about the story, plan where I might like to get started. But life happens. So here I go, launching myself cold back into the writing life I love and missed terribly.

Wish me luck! And luck to all my writing friends - be they NaNo participants or not. I look forward to connecting with everyone again!

5 comments:

Jennifer Hendren said...

Whoo, Jenny! You go, girl! :) We're going to get through this madness together.

Write, write, write!

Jen

Jenny Meyer Graman said...

Thanks Jen! You getting started as well?

Cate said...

You're writing friends have missed you too!

Good luck on NaNo! I'll be struggling along beside you!

Unknown said...

Jenny, I'm not doing Nano, but I'm back to writing after a year, too. The learning curve with taking over as coordinator at Surrey ate all my time, so I wrote all of 300 words last year, all year, and am thrilled to be back to it now. So far, I've worked on it every day this month.

Good luck with the road back to writing. I hope jumping in again means we might see you at Surrey next year!

Kathy

Jenny Meyer Graman said...

Kathy,

Glad to hear you're back to writing. I was sorry to miss Surrey this year. By all accounts, it was an excellent conference this year. I am hoping to go next year, assuming I get this writing thing off the ground again. I haven't made tons of progress this month, but the push to even get back into it has been great!