niece M is uber talented. she painted this when she was 8.
and this when she was 12.
so you see why i requested an M3 painting of my own, right?
well, finally, finally, MY WISH HAS BEEN GRANTED. my very own M3 original!!!!!!!
while i’m obsessed with her work with animals, this is so very me. i mean, BOOKS. they’re my lifeblood. animals and me? we don’t really get along. and, as luck would have it, there has been a spare nail in the wall since i moved in (three years ago) which is the perfect place to hang this priceless piece of art.
speaking of checking things off a life to do list, i crossed off two more things recently (it was a productive thanksgiving, what can i say?)
*eat a november cake (an amazing sounding recipe from THE SCORPIO RACES, one of my favorite books. fortunately, sister E loves to bake, so she made these for me and all i had to do was keep her company in the kitchen. sweet deal, huh?)
*write a novel (50k words) in 30 days or less. (yup. i finished. 58,620 words to be precise. 50,006 written from 11/1 to 11/24 combined with 8,614 words written the last week of october.) and now i’m going to let it sit for a bit and then i shall revise the heck out of it.
while i’m letting my manuscript sit around and marinate, i will be doing the exact opposite. i’ll be traveling to a country i’ve never been to before. for work.
this is shaping up to be a VERY interesting end to 2012 for me.
sometimes something SO BIG comes along the desire to hide overwhelms your sense of logic.
in this case, the something so big is NaNoWriMo (NAtional NOvel WRiting MOnth) in which a novel is defined as 50K and is started on november 1 and finished on/by november 30.
yup. i signed up to write a novel in a month.
i’m considering a costume so maybe it won’t recognize me.
bubba mac yoda is.baby mac as minnie mouse sans traditional ears.the WA mums channeling dr. seuss
i swear this wasn’t just an excuse to show off my beyond adorable nieces and nephews. though, really, aren’t they the cutest?!? i’m not biased at all. this is the truth.
but back to my point. i’m really scared of this task, of this herculean effort, of this novel, of all these expectations (mine + others’). i’ve already started this one once and wrote 20K before i realized i needed to restart it and that brings me to what i’m doing this november.
this is manuscript #3 for me, which means i should have learned something from manuscripts 1 and 2 and those things learned should be incorporated now, but, umm, i can’t find my notes, a pop quiz today?, THE DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK, TEACHER.
wow. that’s already a lot more than i tell most people about my writing because i’m (a) too much of a perfectionist where i don’t want people to see the process, just the results, (b) superstitious, (c) private, (d) awkward, (e) uncomfortable talking about myself, (f) private, (g) see aforementioned items x100. i guess i’m hoping if i put this in writing, i’ll be held accountable.
i want to be accountable.
but i’m scared.
i think it’s time to take a cue from my dear (and ridiculously talented) friend adriana.
mrs. cloud at HER harvard book store reading
perhaps i should throw on something bright so (in her case) the people at the reading focus on that instead of her (so she said); or so (in my case) i focus on the outer (getting the words out) instead of the inner (editor)?
maybe i’m grasping at straws here. maybe that analogy sounded better in my head. maybe i’m procrastinating from working on that manuscript (if you look at the date, yes, i’m two days into NaNo) because the blog is safe and the MS is uncharted territory.
okay, okay. i’m leaving. but first, tell me how YOU go about facing your fears.
Abigail Mumford 