NaCrazyIdeaMo

It's November and you know what that means - it's NaBloPoMo here on ye old blogge! This is my ninth year participating and I am proud to say that I have managed 30 posts in 30 days every single November since I started blogging in 2006. I do this every year because it's good writing practice and even though every post isn't amazing, I do manage to write a few posts that I really love.

Sometimes, I write posts like this:

I opened the fridge today to get a pickle and the jar of pickles was empty but someone had put it back in the fridge. That's it. That's the whole story.

But I looked through the past five years and found a few things from NaBloPoMo that I still appreciate for various reasons:

1. The time I wrote about my mother's china (China Gets Broken)

2. The time Luisa guest posted on my blog (Filling In)

3. The first time I blogged about washing Momo (Fresh as a Kitten's Ass)

4. The time I wrote about water skiing and how parenting can bring life full circle (Jumping the Wake)

5. The time I wrote about my kids making pancakes (Letting Go Smells Like Pancakes)

So, I will be blogging every day again this year and I've been making a list of ideas for the past couple of weeks and it's going to be totes ridic in a good way. Actually, I can't promise that - I just wanted to say "totes ridic" because I like to work crazy things into conversations for sport.

But wait - there's more! With your purchase of a large Up Popped A Fox NaBloPoMo, you also get a free Vikki Reich NaNoWriMo! That's right - 50,000 words in 30 days! For one low price of Free 99, you get 30 blog posts and a poorly written novel that you'll likely never see! This is the best, craziest idea ever!

Why am I doing NaNoWriMo? I have been thinking about trying fiction writing but I have a tendency to only write things that I can use because I hate to waste my words. I thought NaNoWriMo might be a good way for me to be more playful in my writing and to let go of old patterns of thinking. So, I'm doing it. Will I succeed? I have no idea. I can tell you this...we are halfway through Day 1 and I have written 0 words on my novel so things are off to a great start.

Happy NaCrazyIdeaMo to all of you! Are you ready to cheer on the crazy writers in your life? Are you a crazy writer that needs encouragement? Let's do this!

Imperfectly Real

I flew to Boston at the end of June to get together with a group of friends from college. Five years ago, this same group of women encouraged me to write, to collect my thoughts and stories of life and family and put them into a book. This was before I had the courage to call myself a writer, before I had left everything I knew to sit at my desk and put one word after another with the hope that they would serve as stepping stones to something else. I didn't make any big changes after that weekend together but I did begin to think that maybe, just maybe, I could write. In the five years since that weekend, I have been paid for my words and read my work on stage and wrote the manuscript that was nothing more than an idea at that time, nothing more than a dash of movement in the periphery of my vision.

So, before our reunion, I wanted to finish the second draft of my book. I wanted to take it to them and drop it onto the table like a 44,014 word thank you card. So, I worked harder than I normally do all through early June and a few days before I was set to fly out, I finished it. Rather than print out a copy and kill trees just for the visual, I loaded it on to my Kindle and took it with me and for some reason - boredom or self-indulgence - I read it on the plane. There are plenty of flaws and those were clear to me as I read but there were moments too when I thought, "Yes, that is exactly right." And I will admit I shed a few tears over my complimentary pretzels.

That first night together, we all sat around catching up and I told them I had finished my book and thanked them for their faith in me all those years ago. I had no bundle of paper to drop dramatically into our circle. It was quieter than that, gentler and even now, I worry that for all my skill with words, I didn't properly convey my gratitude.

My book now rest in the hands of a couple of trusted souls and I continue to be surprised by the vulnerability of giving your words to another. I worry I've spent too long on this, that there is not enough good to salvage. I worry that I will not have done the stories justice.

As Ann Patchett says in  The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life,

"Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words."

While my book lived in my mind, it had unlimited potential but now that it lives outside of me, it has become imperfectly real. And now, I have to keep moving.