I admit it. When I couldn’t sleep this morning I started mentally writing my novel. But before I STARTED started, I decided to create a writing ritual that might help me during this next month of intensive writing, and on into next month of edits and rewrites. I remember when I was going through tough times. I started each day with tai chi, then meditation. My mind always felt calmer and clearer, and I got my famous “Rainbow Page” of Pink Stars and Angel Wings after I’d done tai chi and sat down to meditate. The words just ‘came’ to me, and this was before I’d even started doing my intuitive work formally! Over 20 years ago! It worked for me then, so I resurrect that practice again to help me not only with my writing, but for direction in the rest of my life, as well. I tend to get blown off course quite easily, and when I’m undertaking a big project like this novel, I want/need any help I can get.
I finally started the tai chi at 11AM. I finished at 11:10. I meditated until 11:20. Good - now I know that it will take me 20 minutes to do my prep work before I write every day. Sheesh - now can you understand why it’s difficult to be me? I think too much. I plan. I figure. I plot. But I don’t always DO. So this month is about actively and aggressively DOING, not necessarily by any pre-planning. I sat down to write my first 1700 words. I got my first sentence: “Are you awake, sweetie?” What a great start! What powerful words! How deeply symbolic? Crap! How can I keep that brilliance up for another 49,996 words? I started out shaky. A lot of “he did this” then “he did that”. Not good writing. But I didn’t stop. I just kept going. I could feel the story start to wake up in my head, as I wove real life into fiction, pulling from what I knew, changing names and circumstances and telling another parallel story. I could feel myself relaxing somewhere along the bottom of the third page, and when I looked at the word count I was relieved to see 2063 words. Phew! Quickly I entered the number on my NaNo home page, saved the document, and printed out a hard copy. I felt good. I did it! I was going to be okay.
Then I wondered: COULD I keep it up for another 29 days? Sure, I reached/surpassed my goal for the first day, but could I do it again tomorrow? I typed “new document” and started on the second day. 565 words later I stop - okay, I’ve got a good start for TOMORROW, so I’m not so scared anymore. Maybe I can do it, after all. Maybe some day soon I’ll trust myself not to keep writing ahead for the next days and trust that the words will come. Trust the words. Trust. Hmmmm…