I signed up with NaNoWriMo in November, because I wanted to really get started on my novel. I knew that I didn't have the vaguest chance of actually finishing it in 30 days, and I didn't finish it in 30 days. In fact, I just passed 50,000 words yesterday, and I think I have about 40,000 more before it will really be finished, which means that I'll have finished it in about a year.
Maybe a real writer can finish a novel faster than that, but I'm working full-time and up to my neck in lots of other projects, too, so I feel fine about that time frame. I write for about 15 minutes a day, almost every single day (sometimes I take Sundays off.) Every so often, I go back and revise. Sometimes, I cringe when I reread my own work, thinking "who would ever read this bilge?" Other times, I laugh out loud at my own funny funny dialogue, because no one laughs harder at my jokes than me. It's not necessarily a humor novel, although there are funny parts. At least I think they're funny, but I'm no judge, because I crack myself up.
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My husband wants me to go shopping with him to pick out tile and paint and fixtures for my bathroom, which is in dire need of repair, especially the floor, a horrid old stick-on vinyl hot mess that won't come clean no matter how hard I scrub it. As badly as the bathroom needs attention, though, and as much as I want the project finished, I just can't bear the thought of spending hours in a home improvement warehouse picking out stuff. Instead, I'm picking out tile and a vanity, etc., online, and we'll just pick it up at the store when it arrives. "But what if you don't like it?" my husband asks. "Don't you want to see this stuff in person before you buy it?" No. No, I don't. Even if the tile color is slightly off; even if the vanity doesn't look quite as nice IRL as it does online, it will be much better than what we have now, and that's all I need.
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When I was young and single, I read magazines. Vanity Fair was my favorite; but I also loved Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Glamour. I stopped reading magazines because the Web made them obsolete; and because I just didn't have time anymore. Not only did I not have time to read the magazines; I didn't have time to live life the way the magazine writers said that I should. If everyone did everything that magazine self-help articles advised--8 hours of sleep, daily structured workouts, organic paleo diet, the right clothes and hair and makeup--then no one would ever have time for anything other than self-care and maintenance.
I was busy before I started working full-time again, but now I'm ridiculously busy. I can still accomplish things, though; I just have to set priorities and manage expectations. I don't have time to shop and deliberate over fixtures, but I can still renovate my bathroom as long as I'm willing to live with whatever I can order sight unseen from the Internet. I can write a novel as long as I don't need to act however a novelist is supposed to act. I'm not sure how novelists are supposed to act, actually, but I'm pretty sure that they're not supposed to write two or three sentences at a time, for five or fifteen minutes at a time, while dinner is on the stove or coffee is brewing. Eventually, I'll have a functioning bathroom and a book that might or might not be readable. I'll also have 24 hours a day; same as everyone else.
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