Remember that bag I was knitting and needle-felting this summer? I had hoped to write a post about my progress on it.
I’m not writing a post about my progress on it. Because life got in the way.
Does anyone else have a crazy November? It doesn’t seem like it, because this is National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which means there are thousands of writers around the world heating up their laptops, computers, tablets, etc., in their attempt to write 50,000 words in one month.
I’d love to join in. But my Novembers are far too busy to set aside that much time for writing. Here’s what’s happening at the Germaine household this month: Thanksgiving and two birthday celebrations, which equate to time spent preparing for each of those. Hubby hunts on the weekends, so I won’t ask him to parent for me on those days, since hunting has a specific season and writing does not. And then there’s Christmas decorating.
Yes, I pull out most of my decorations on November 1st and it takes me a good week to get them situated around the house (I do save some for after Thanksgiving. 😉 ). This particular November, my mom also comes out to visit, and writing naturally gets set aside whenever guests arrive. Add to that the normal daily strife of cleaning and running errands and preparing meals and going to appointments, etc., etc., and there’s no way I can participate in NaNoWriMo.
I must be in the minority, for the number of people who participate in NaNoWriMo grows bigger each year.
Yet I’m not the only American who needs to prepare for Thanksgiving. Nor am I the only one with birthday celebrations or busy schedules. And I know I’m not the only one to decorate for Christmas early (neighbors down the street had their tree standing and lit in their front window by the evening of November 2!). 🙂
How did the originators of NaNoWriMo choose November, anyway? Did someone close their eyes, aim their finger at a calendar, and let it land on this particular month?
Why couldn’t it be NaFebWriMo? Or NaMaWriMo? Okay, so those don’t rhyme, and in fact they sound kooky, but other than Valentine’s Day, what else goes on in February? And March…! Why, March in MT still finds us waist deep in the winter blahs as Jack Frost clings to our windows in his tenacious grip. What a great excuse to escape from our gray existence into imaginary worlds of color and humor and intrigue and romance and mystery by pounding out 50,000 words in thirty days!
Just sayin’…
What does this have to do with my felted bag?
Right.
See, I was going to try to have the accent colors needle-felted in time for this post, but to accomplish that would have required me to use my limited writing hours—and I realized that although I couldn’t write around guests, I could certainly needle-felt. So the half-finished bag waits inside my closet until my mom’s arrival while I currently ruminate over plotlines.
And even though I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo, I did write over three thousand new words on my WIP yesterday!
Maybe I can attempt the challenge of NaNoWriMo in about ten years—when my girls are off to college and there’s no need for big birthday parties with school friends and they won’t be bothered when I decorate for Christmas in October.
Decorate in December, you say? After NaNoWriMo?
Nope. You see, Christmas-y surroundings bolster my optimism and inspire my writing (even if the story takes place in the summertime)—and should I ever sign up for NaNoWriMo, I’m going to need all the confidence and inspiration I can get!
Scattered Whimsy 