NaNoWriMo?

The other day Hai asked me if I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year.

“Hadn’t even thought about it,” I responded.

Hai’s first response was an emoticon: =O

Then, “Don’t you do it every year?” he asked.

“No,” I responded. “I think I tried once or twice.”

It was twice. The first time, in 2004, I actually did pretty well, writing at least one scene every day for the first third of the month. Then the story sort of fizzled out and died. I couldn’t figure out where to go next, so I gave up. The second time was right after the fire in 2005. While the idea I had was actually pretty interesting, and I still think about it now and then, I was too emotionally drained from losing everything and trying to deal with living with the in-laws to write.

I was cavalier about the topic with Hai, partly because I was busy at the time we were talking, but also because it hurts to think about how writing has been gradually disappearing from my life. Ever since I left school, then the AMRN, I’ve had less and less drive to write creatively. No deadlines, no one to read and review. No expectations. And now even my blog has dried up–Twitter allows me to be lazy and not craft long pieces anymore.

I’ve talked about giving up writing before, but the truth is I don’t really want to. It would be a waste. I don’t want to be the personification of lost opportunity. There are so many things I’m good at, but I don’t work nearly hard enough to hone any of my skills. It both feeds and is fed by my lack of direction: I can’t pick one, so I don’t do any of them.

It has to stop. I need a kick in the pants.

Maybe NaNoWriMo would be a good start.

I’ve been thinking about a story involving my two favorite AMRN characters, Celia Mazarin and Natalie “Byron” Ryan. Originally I’d planned to make it a webcomic, but I’ve always written in story form. If I could just finish the story, I could always reimagine it as a comic later.

NaNoWriMo begins one week from today.

I think I’ll do it.