Monday, October 29, 2012

Guilty

I just signed up for NaNoWriMo. And I feel guilty already... Do I really think I have time for that? Don't I have more important things to do?
In full it's called National Novel Writing Month (it has become International since the start in 1999 in the US, but they never changed the name), and it basically is a challenge. So you think you want to be a writer? Try writing for a month. See if you can write every day. See if you can get a story done. See if you can spit out 50.000 words. You do the work. We help with the motivation.
(Of course, after a month there is only a rough first draft of a novel to be expected. The real work of editing and rewriting comes after that. But, writing that first rough draft is many times the most difficult.)
One of the things to motivate you, they say, is to tell all your friends you're doing this...
Now I am an Enneagram type 6 (I think...), and I feel uncomfortable with publicity.
In my everlasting quest to find out "who I am", I got interested in the Enneagram a few years ago. After calling myself a type 4 for some time, wondering if I could be a type 9, hoping I am not a type 1, or indeed a type 6, I finally settled (for now) on type 6. Then I stumbled on a blog about Enneagram types (can't find it back), that also has a list of self identified Enneagram type blogwriters. And guess what... There were no types 6 in the list! Sixes don't feel comfortable being out there in the open. Which might explain my ambivalence towards blog writing. I like to write. I want to write. But posting it on the internet makes me feel insecure. Still... I have a blog. To be honest, I have a few. Could that mean I am not a type 6 after all, even if my posts are few and far between? In any case, despite my misgivings I am posting this blog, and announcing to you that I am going to do this challenge. Or, at least I am going to try.
My goal is, to tell truth, to write. Every day. 1667 words a day, which makes 50.000 words in a month. Whether it will become a novel or not. Even if I don't see one good reason to do this Nanowrimo thing.
To try to be a writer? I don't even have my life together. I don't even have my house organized. I don't even know what I am doing at my desk in the library. I didn't even finish crocheting one simple kipa (my last project), or read more than a tenth of all the books on my book shelves. Me, want to be a writer? How could I possibly have anything to say that anybody would like to read?
But there is this wish. Always has been. And there is a memory. Once, several years ago, I took a course in creative writing. I may not have been brilliant. But I loved it. It made me happy. So, I may feel self conscious, maybe. But there is a talent. It is there, somehow, somewhere. In me. And maybe I can develop it this November... Wish me luck!
PS By the way, anybody has a plot for me?

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