NaNoWriMo Day 28

 

Looking backward, I always knew I could write 50,000 good words in a month. When I worked full time for NY houses, I averaged 40 pages a week which is 40,000 words a month. That was the average. But I had not done that for a long, long time. We are talking 2009 before I ever had one single social media account. Social media is an anathema to writing or to any art. I am going to be honest about that. I have not written a decent thing really since I got on social media until now. And that's the truth.

As I have said many times previously, I am not a crappy draft writer. I don't use them if I write them. I completely rewrite them or throw them away. So I had to also write a fairly decent draft of 50,000 words, a draft that I intended to keep and revise. I did a lot of revising as I wrote this time in NaNo. I reread my writing each time I sat down, from the beginning. That's how I work anyway. It made the days long writing days. All this was to prove to myself that I could go back to writing novels full time. 

What does that exactly mean? Writing a novel full time. It means wanting to be published traditionally, too. It means, writing a second novel, a third novel, and hopefully more. That means working full time as a novelist like a job. A habit. An art form you practice every single day that you can. Others may not find that daunting, but I have a very good memory and a clear vision of what kind of labor that is, not only to the mind, but to the body, to one's social life, to one's health. And so when I worked through NaNoWriMo, I attempted (because there were failures) to do the things that helped me stay active and content, even healthy. I made notes on when I failed and why, so that I could hopefully learn from them. But even doing all this, there were days that were just chaotic and I wondered if I would really complete the task and sustain it. Sustaining a writing career is very different from writing a single novel. Believe me. Trust me on that. Sustaining your writing might mean no social media or limited. It may mean saying no to parties or TV shows. I haven't watched TV all month. I've watch a couple of movies. Committing to writing long novels is work. And it hurts. Remember that. I do. I know this. 

My original goal had been 37,500 words because I felt comfortable writing that goal. But by the end of the first week, I said to myself, "Jane, go for it. You know what it takes to write a novel. Do it." In NY, writing means writing a novel a year or every other year for most people. That said, there is no novel completed. I don't write 50,000 word novels. I can't remember the Regencies even being that small. No novel goal was ever 50,000 words which is 200 or so pages. Even a Harlequin paranormal romance novel for a line was longer than that. Novels are 75,000 words up in the publishing world. And so I have to write on. My novel is not even halfway finished. My pace will be 40,000 words a month. And then there will be time for revising and rewriting and polishing and editing and then tidying it all up. And then, only then, will I have a completed novel. I don't use beta readers or outside editors. That's not my practice. I don't know anyone in the early days of my publishing life that even knew what a beta reader was. But a few people will read my manuscript.

NaNoWriMo Day 28: Words 50,660.

Updated Nov 29: 53,185.

Learning to Sleep

 

The Sleeping Beauty by Burne-Jones.

One of the things I have achieved over the last few years is how learning to sleep, which would change my life for the better. People who suffer from depression, or who do not adhere to any kind of schedule usually end up with insomnia and yes, bad sleeping habits. For years, due to medication mostly and habit, I was a night owl who liked to sleep until noon most days. And it became harder to maintain as I had children. I cheated even then, going back to sleep after my children went off to school. And then a doctor made me realize that insomnia was part of depression and if I embraced that, I might could change how I slept. I did not believe him but a few years ago I attempted to do what he said. It was really rough the first year, but the second year was better and the third, and now sixth year in, I am sleeping at night, sometimes falling asleep so naturally I cannot even believe it's happening. Of course, this meant controlling my caffeine consumption, knowing when I got over stimulated, and practicing, with some failure I might add. But now I am a sleeping beauty, so to speak.  It took me six years to change how I slept. It's a milestone for me.

One of the things to note here is how long it took me. Six years to really reach a natural new sleep pattern. 

The Past

“As much as I try to make the past keep still and mind its manners, it moves and murmurs with me through every day.”

— Deborah Levy, Swimming Home

Day 21 of NaNoWriMo

 

Once Upon a Time, I relied on readers and the thoughts and suggestions of other people, mostly friends who were writers, when I was working a first draft or even on the second one. That is a situation that is now time long past. Because in truth, I don't rely or focus on what other people have to say about me or my work or my life in any way. I can't really pinpoint the moment of this change but I know it was over fifteen years ago, and to be honest, I pretty much had this opinion all along because even as a little girl, I valued myself, my interests, and even when hurt or bullied, I worked to survive and let go. Some people can never let go.

This is not to say, I won't seek advice or help before this novel is finished. I will. It's just not the typical help I once needed. 

We all go through life, trying to live and love and maybe even be happy, and I notice that many people really care too much what other people think of them. I see it now on social media. I see it  in my own life when I talk to others, this need to be liked and valued. I think it's perfectly natural up until a point. I love this quote by Nietzsche. It used to hang on my wall in my study long ago as a young girl. "When did a dragon ever die from the poison of a snake?" The answer is never. It's not really popular now because it's not popular to be uncomfortable or to experience, self-conceived or not, microaggressions, discomforting opinions from others, and so forth. I think there are reasons for this. We are living in a time when people are wanting to be coddled or not even exposed to difficulties. 

Past pains, Childhood traumas, Surviving racism, or poverty, or violence, The pressures of modernity, The fear of fascism, wars, and Climate Adaptation — all these things are weighing us down.  

But being uncomfortable is how you learn to deal and survive. 

REPEAT THAT.

Being coddled will not spare you the realities of life. Money will not even save you. The world does not work like that, this need to make everyone equal is a utopian dream. I like it. We all dream of this. To make everyone equal under the same law would be a better way of thinking and I believe we are trying to do that. But there are many laws and many cultures and many differences. And it takes time. And we are not all born equal. One person can be a ballet dancer and one can play basketball. One can paint. One can play the piano. One can make cars. One can build houses. To be able to pursue any of these goals is lucky. Predicament. But it is not a guarantee that can be made by governments or even science. It's really not even human nature. And psychologically, it's harmful to believe that you can protect yourself from the pains and traumas of world or that you can somehow make them disappear by just renaming them or how you treat them. You can't. To believe that is believe in a lie. We are only equal in that we are all human beings and we deserve fairness and the right to liberty and the possibility of happiness. We deserve opportunity.

Do I promote kindness? I do. Always err on the side of kindness, but nature is not kind and people are part of nature. I learned long ago, under extreme trauma that Dragons don't die from snake bites. And I learned that we are all dragons in this savage Eden.

At some point in writing a long novel, (or any long creative action) one will begin to face all sorts of demons and doubts. There will be failures and wrong choices and even self loathing. Some days we are blocked. Instead of writing, we do other things or we plot again or whatever.  Some days we can't write because there are other demands that can't be set aside. A creative work, a work in progress, is always going to make strange demands on the creative and that is going to produce anxiety, and maybe even absolute fear that the work is just crap. And that leads to chaos and believe me, chaos is the enemy of sanity.

So when we work, we must remind ourselves that we will be uncomfortable at many points in the act of creating a big project. We will be very uncomfortable at times. Not working is so much safer, but it is not the right choice for a creative. To not live your life in pursuit of something you are able to attain, with reason and goodness, ultimately leads to depression. There are so many things that we will do to try and save ourselves from doubts, fears, and eventually chaos.

But the only true way out of chaos is to take action by making order, making meaning, and doing the work. Moving forward. Letting go. Some days you are going to hate your work. Or maybe yourself. But it will pass if you stay with the project.

I believe that life is somewhat of a mystery and not all of it is nice. And there is a lot of misery in this world because nature is imperfect and we are all imperfect creatures. The most any of us can do is to teach love and tolerance. To practice it. To be kind.

And if we are creatives, to do our art, regardless.

NaNoWriMo Day 21: 33,029 words. About 135 pages. Over 1/4 of my draft has been written and over half of the 50,000 words, which I might not get. 

One of my favorite passages from Lestat is prior to his change when he has a panic attack, literally, and experiences an Existential crisis. It's hilarious and I always laugh out loud. I have previously posted this. I love it.

“I realized aloud in the midst of saying it that even when we die we probably don't find the answer as to why we were ever alive. [...] Do you realize that! We'll never know why the hell any of it happened, not even when it's over! We're going to die and not even know. We'll never know, and all this meaningless will just go on and on and on. And we won't any longer be witnesses to it. We won't have even that little bit of power to give meaning to it in our minds. We'll just be gone, dead, dead, dead, without ever knowing.”

                                          — The Vampire Lestat

                                                (Anne Rice)

Wonder is my drug.

“We live in an age when you say casually to somebody 'What's the story on that?' and they can run to the computer and tell you within five seconds. That's fine, but sometimes I’d just as soon continue wondering. We have a deficit of wonder right now.” — Tom Waits

People make and create decisions and ideas, often with a personal fear. Do. Not. Do. It.

“Fear is the mother of foresight.”

                         — Thomas Hardy

NaNoWriMo Day 14

 

Writing a novel is not for the faint of heart is an old saying that I first heard, well I can't remember when, one that I did not pay much attention to because I was naive and eager. After writing a dozen genre novels, from Historical romance to Regencies to Horror to Mainstream, I realized that writing and publishing with traditional NY houses and staying published was indeed hard work and not for the faint of heart. I am amused. When I quit writing for various reasons, I never expected to pursue traditional publishing again. After all, I could do anything I wanted, such as plant and later paint flowers, write bad poetry, or be a perpetual student and in many ways, I am that perpetual student, but the year before my husband discovered he had cancer, I told him and myself that I wanted to write this ambitious fairy project. He laughed at me. I remember his words, he asked me why I wanted to sit for hours at a desk, by myself in a room, and work my little heart out for years, maybe he added, on something I could probably sell, but would make little money from. Time is everything, he told me.  Time matters. I had spent Time writing. I had spent Time teaching children. I had spent Time with children and with him. I was free. Why write when Money in publishing is always a gamble, for the author and for the publisher, too.  If you have read this blog, you know that my husband ran out of time. He died and it took me a long time to recover from his dying and death. Now, I might run out of time, too. But when I gathered my senses after Covid. I began to plan, seriously. I was indeed going to write The Ambitious Fairy Project.

The thing is I had worked hard in publishing for many years. I knew exactly what kind of work it would take to write a novel like this, because for me, person of mediocre skills but wild imagination, writing such a novel was and is ambitious. Just the other day, I thought, I cannot do this. I even had to stop for a day and rework the plot a bit, because I decided to change a couple of things. I went back and revised everything to support those changes and then I fell into a kind of depression looking at my plot board, because despite making great progress, I had many more pages to write.

But quitting is not an option.

Now is the time. Hard work on a novel is something few writers really want to talk about. You aren't going to write a novel in NaNoWriMo, you are going to write maybe 50,000 words and if you do not plan and have pretty good skills, you are going to write a really crappy draft. I do not like crappy drafts. I never use them. My plot board is a what other people call a crappy draft. Been there. Done that. And my plot boards are pretty damn good. And so my drafting (yes I do revise all the time) is pretty damn good, too. But it is very hard work. It takes me at least half an hour to write a single page according to my drafting standards. A revised page is an hour. And that's fine if I keep it like that. Laughing. So lots of hours go into writing a 500 page novel. OMG. 125,000+ words is very ambitious for me. You might see a lot of them out there, but as someone who worked inside publishing, too. 125,000 words up is risky business. New authors should write 350 page novels that might creep toward 400 pages. No kidding. I just gave some good advice that I somehow can't keep for myself. Of course, I do know what upmarket fantasy novel is. And maybe that will help me. Maybe not. I write with a reader in mind and this time, I have lots of readers.  There are so many wonderful things I could be doing besides writing. I could watch Netflix, I could play on social media and write threads on fashion like other wannabe writers. I could plan a trip to Italy or spend my money going to see Placebo next year. Nope. Not happening. I am going to write a novel. 

Most, if not all days, I am going to get up, make my tea, and walk into this room and type words for several hours, living in the land of make believe. That's a sort of insanity. It's not even rational. Why? So I can call myself a writer or author. So I can pretend that I am doing something worthwhile. Hell, I don't know. My therapist says I need to make meaning, beautiful meaning that is worthwhile to me and that my writing is a form of self expression. That I have something valuable to say. And maybe I do.

We will all find out one day.

It took me 14 days, working extremely hard (I have backaches, headaches, I sleep badly and my eyes are dry) to write 25,374 words, which is set up at 250 words most pages. That's a 100 pages. I won't be able to sustain this pacing. I am not going to lie about it. I feel myself slowing down. I had to stop one day for plot and some minor revision. I had to stop one day to go do my baby boy's birthday party. I used that day to pull out all my Christmas decorations and set up the trees. These are things I want to do, things I will not do without. If I do continue at this pace, I will do my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. It will be quite an accomplishment.

I hope to do that.

But my new draft of this novel will be less than half done. I will have to continue writing through the holidays and I do have some plans already in place. I see myself writing through January and finishing this draft somewhere around then.

Then guess what. I let it rest, and I start again.

Day 14, NaNoWriMo, 25,374 words.

P.S. This is not an except from my journal, I have had no time to do a journal this week.

Artefact belonging to the Mads LaMotte Collection

THE MUNGO PATERNOSTER. Charred remains of alabasterite sculpture depicting the joined head of explorer Mungo Park and Death. Eleven ½ inch beads constructed of paper. Historians identified the original paper as loose scraps from Park’s journal, sold as religious charms in 1796 on Park’s return from Nigeria. See also Mungo Park 1799 Travels in the Interior of Africa. According to Mads LaMotte, the religious charms were no more than badly written phrases translated from undetermined passages of the Koran. In spite of this, the charms were soon discovered to be Indestructible and collected over a period of fifty years. How the charms became beads for the paternoster is debated. Mads LaMotte purchased the paternoster as part of a collection of personal property owned by adventurer George Hogg who died in 1945 at Shandan district in China. 

copyright © 2022 by Jane Harrington

NaNoWriMo Day 7

 

Journal

I've never written a story like this. Despite the fantastical elements, it is the most autobiographical piece of fiction I have ever written. It is a story about a lot of things, mostly ideas and yes, how people respond to their predicament in life. It's a fairy tale about tellers of fairy stories, about desire being the opposite of death, about nature, and well, love. Love is a desperate kingdom at best, but it is always worth the trouble. Love mitigates our trials and sorrows and pains. When we are children, we love and when we are broken children, we are always trying to fix the child. It's pure psychology. 

I have made a belligerent commitment to my writing and my book. Because it is more than writing. It is a thing. A book. A story. An idea expressed. It is a form of self expression to explore all the moments that were beautiful but very imperfect. The thing is imperfect, too. But it is the best I have ever done. And I know it. Ten years ago I could not have written this story.

It is Day 7 NaNoWriMo and I have written 13,760 very beautiful words. This is not a crappy draft.

A love like this is always possible.

“Don't fall in love with perfect things, without damage. Perfect things belong to everyone. Fall in love with shadows, cracks, distortions...that you feel belong to you. Fall in love with those who have learned to survive.” 

                                   — Valentina D'Urbano

Reverie on Melancholy

 I am a metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistencies mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.”

                       ― Kilroy J. Oldster

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me personally that I write about Melancholy. That Melancholy is more than just sadness, though many of us are sad people. I am mostly happy, but I have this side to me that is very serious, aware, and full of melancholy. I started studying Melancholy when very young, because I was sentimental and attracted to Romantic literature, mostly Poe, Coleridge and Shelley. Then I moved on to the Rossettis and later to modern poets, and all of them were pretty melancholic. Also because my mother and I both suffered from it at times. And I wanted to know how and why. When I discovered Placebo in late 2018 and began listening to their songs, by summer the next year, I could see Melancholy all over Brian Molko's work, his interviews, his very public story.

Perhaps that was always my attraction to Brian Molko and Placebo, his sadness, his suicide ideation, his sense of isolation, his loneliness, his despair. The flip side of all those was his anger. He could be very angry. I have often said that no one does "bitter better than Molko." People see comments like this analysis as judgment, but one does not have to be psychologically introspective or even attempting to read interiority to hear a song and know what it is about in general, especially if one has read thousands of songs, thousands of novels, thousands of poems. And spent hundreds of hours in therapy or in Psychology classes.

Brian Molko is that obvious, even in his attempts at ambiguity. He doesn't use ambiguity to hide it. There are other reasons for his vagueness. There is never any ambiguity about his melancholy. And it is not a judgment of his character. Much of his music is pure Melancholic aesthetics. That said, he is not a Goth. It's more a snapshot of his experiences. Today, in Psychology, we have various forms of sadness labeled, but Melancholy is really a mood disorder and that leads us to Major Depressive Disorder. There is no cure for this mood disorder. One simply learns how to control it or to mitigate some of its issues. Pharmaceuticals help sometimes and well, at times, they complicate everything. There is no perfect medicine. Many people with mood disorders turn to drugs and self-medicate, which is the description that Brian Molko has described personally about his own life. The fact that he writes about it, talks about it openly, is really a blessing. Addiction is a disease. It complicates the lives of people who suffer from mood disorders. It can even make MDD and related issues worse. Related issues of MDD are insomnia, chronic boredom, eating problems, and yes, some conduct issues. People may become paranoid and even hallucinate under the right circumstances. Just how many times has Brian Molko used the word "bored" or talked openly about it and insomnia?

I have both cognitive and emotional empathy for anyone who suffers from Melancholy. I, myself, suffer from Depression and often rely on Prozac. And I have spent years and years of my life trying to understand it, to expose it, and to normalize it to a certain degree. As a person who also studies Romanticism and Folklore, I see Melancholy all the time. In a painting. In a paragraph in a book, in the melody of a song. In the words of a song. I recognize it. In a fairy tale or a myth. In symbols. In metaphors. Even iconography. Just look at Victorian Tombstone Art. 

Melancholy is all around us.

In closing this post, I suppose, in the end, this does make me see Brian Molko and Placebo a bit differently than the typical cultish fan. That's all right.

The Yellow Tree 2022

 

This is my favorite tree and it's a much brighter, purer yellow and I suppose if I took a photo standing far off with the sunlight hitting it just perfectly, I would take the perfect photo. Nope. I like to stand under it and just feel amazed. It makes me feel all gooey inside and silly, like I am a girl again and I just discovered something for the first time and that something is transcendence and all that kind of nonsense. A yellow tree does that for me. A yellow tree.

The Orange Tree 2022

 I really don't do these trees justice. And since I stand under them, full of awe, I just click the phone camera and sigh. November 3, 2022. On my morning walk.

Eugène Grasset, Three Women and Three Wolves, 1892

Eugène Grasset, Three Women and Three Wolves, 1892.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

 Day 1 NaNoWriMo

Journal

Excellent day. Over 5 hours writing. Over 2517 words.  Good words. I revised some as I wrote. I hate rough, crappy drafts and never use them once I write them, so I devised a better system to do NaNo. I have a very good detailed plot. Meaning every single scene in the book. With notes. I revise those notes every day before writing. This is going to be a very good draft of a very difficult book. Something very challenging for me. I am sure to revise and rewrite some of it. But it will not be a total washout or one of those drafts where you are rewriting all the time and just miserable. This is really me taking chances and keeping a promise to myself. This is me making meaning in a meaningful way to me. This is accountability in a way I don't usually address or make public. This is me doing things new ways in hope of new outcomes.

The Yellow Leaf

 

Beautiful morning walk. Lots of color everywhere and the bluest of skies. Clean and cool air. Friendly faces. It was almost euphoric in feeling and would have been completely that if I were not so present and looking outward, not within myself. The leaves were a riot of colors.

November, at last.

 

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

― Will Durant

Since it is November, it's pretty obvious what habit I am working on this year. Last year, I took a 20 week Cognitive Behavior Program and Habit was part of that program. I made one new habit. Smiling shyly here and not a very good one. Habits are harder to make than break. Of course, breaking a habit is a nightmare. I went into that part of the program thinking I would create three new habits and break one very bad one. Laughing hysterically here. But I am still a work in progress and yes, I keep a damn journal for these Cognitive exercises which really remind me of what habits truly are and how difficult it is to break a bad one and form a new one. But writing every day on my work is one of my challenges. And I remain committed. 

To say that you can't be wrong is probably wrong.

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
                   —   Bertrand Russell