My wrists ache and I have an eyelid twitch. My daughter thinks she lives in a single parent home and my employers wonder if I’ve relocated to a witness protection program. I have finally met the National Novel Writing Month challenge word count goal of 50,000 words.
I’m sick of it. Let’s move on to something else. Like personal hygiene. And physical exercise. And possibly some flu-free living. November was a bit of a hell month, but not the same kind of hell month of those hit by Sandy or say the starving and homeless had. Even I have some sense of proportion – so this is my petty post. I’ll write about deep and meaningful stuff again. Eventually.
The novel I intended, is not the novel I wrote. Apparently I have a lot of issues to work out. It was simply supposed to be a character study, a family drama about the effects of addiction and dysfunctional personalities on a family and the repercussions. In the end, there were 3 deaths, adultery, incest, verbal and physical abuse, narcissism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and murder. This was not the family I had hoped to write about – it turned into an overwrought melodrama that I wouldn’t buy in paperback at the Goodwill store. How’s that for self-promotion? Needless to say, it needs a lot of work and a little focus wouldn’t hurt either.
Tomorrow is a new day and even better, a new month. I’m pulling down the boxes of holiday decorations out of the garage rafters tonight, so they can thaw out. My daughter has already hinted at a long list that she has been writing. I like to think of it as the “Stuff I Won’t Be Getting for Christmas Because My Parents Hate Shopping” list. When I put it like that, she narrows the list down to things that I can buy at the convenience store while I’m getting gas. Priorities, child, priorities.
I look forward to dragging my ass, which is strangely now the shape of my office chair, to the YMCA in the morning to start the long road back to full physical recovery. I’ll be the one wearing all black with a lot of layers, waiting for the treadmill that is against the wall. Without the mirror. I don’t care if there are twenty other treadmills available. I’m waiting on this one, lady, so get a move on.
After my workout, I plan on perusing all the blog posts I’ve missed over the last few weeks. I fear the NaNoWriMo thing has corrupted me – I’ll be writing comments to posts that are longer than the actual posts and getting frustrated when I can’t see the word count. I will happily, happily get back to blogging. No one interacts with you when you’re writing a novel, except to come into the study to ask if there’s dinner, slinking away in despair. My family has become a pack of scavenging wolves. They’re much more self-sufficient, though. I might tell them that December is poetry writing month.
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