Catharsis & Co.

So, let's try to get this Sphere rolling again.

I'm finally unearthing from all the email, to-do items, random chores, etc that piled up while I spent every free moment in November on NaNoWriMo - which somehow I managed to finish. Fifty thousand words of drivel in the space of a month - not too shabby! Except it really is drivel ... as in, no one else will likely end up reading it, either by my choice or theirs ... but it's served its purpose. I didn't really start writing with much of a plan in mind - really, I was just thinking a series of character sketches that could be developed into something sometime later - but as it went on, the 'novel' kind of turned into something more along the lines of 'memoirs.' Are you allowed to have memoirs at all of 29 years old? That sounds so terribly pretentious ... but taking all the random chaos that's happened over the last decade or so and putting it down on paper has had some really remarkable benefits:

1. It's taught me about the principle of quantity over quality, which means I've had a lot more freedom to just write without thinking. (As it says all over the NaNoWriMo Web site, there's always time in December for editing.) This has always been a bit tough for me, particularly after being taught in J-school to shoehorn as much as possible into as small a space as possible. (The flip side, though, is that the stuff I write here, in emails to friends, etc etc, is probably going to veer even more towards the side of grammatically incorrect crap. We'll see.)

2. It's been this really crazy act of catharsis. That sounds so pop-psych, but seriously: now that it's all on paper, I can see that a lot has happened in the last 10-ish years and not all of it was terribly good. Not all of it was bad, either, but in the end, it's the bad stuff you end up needing to work on letting go of. Writing it out has helped. Immensely.

3. I actually managed to write a hundred-odd pages of something that wasn't my college thesis. So, it's not that hard. It can be done again. On something with a little more relevance and interest to average, normal reader types.

So, it's been a really great experience in all. But, I've got to say that ignoring just about everything for a month and then slamming straight into the holidays with all this catching up to do is a bit crazy - even though I'm dead determined not to really 'celebrate' the 'holidays' this year. (Thanksgiving was a fantastic start: no big family gathering, but no stress or turkey coma or football or the like this year, just a wonderful quiet weekend full of dancing and walking and talking.)

Trying to trim down the stuff I'm 'supposed to be' doing until the beginning of the new year in favor of the stuff I'm actually doing meaning something. Trying to calm down the usual consumer mess; I've still got gifts to think of, that sort of thing, but I'm bound and determined not to set foot in a shopping mall until at least the first of the year. Trying to cling (maybe tenuously so) to getting enough sleep and exercise, and not too much fake holiday food and bad Christmas carols.

And wow. If I can pull that off, the holidays are going to be just fantastic. Well, OK - if Thanksgiving is any indicator, they already are. Let's just say more fantastic. How's that?

I did it!!

Here it goes again

OK Go and Princeton, Nov 09
Originally uploaded by dzesika

So X and I went to see OK Go perform in Rock Island, which was awesome.

I'm still plugging away at NaNoWriMo ... back shortly. Watch this space.

Oh, hang on, wait

So, I've decided to do this whole NaNoWriMo thing. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, and I've wanted to take part for a few years now, but never really had the time. Actually, I don't have the time now due to Staying Stupidly Busy While Newly Single, but what better time to write a novel (or at least try) than when a bunch of stuff happens at once?

So - since every syllable I type in November better damn well go toward those 50,000 words I've pledged to write - I'll probably not be saying much here for a little while. (What else is new?) But, if anyone feels like holding me to it, please check in on my profile on nanowrimo.org. I'm supposed to be updating my word count as I go along, and if this whole 'novel' doesn't get too embarrassingly autobiographical, I'll post links on where to read it, too.

In the meantime, get your red pens ready and have a fantastic November, if we don't chat first.

What now, what next?

There's a Kerouac haiku:

Here I am,
Two p.m.
What day is it?

... and that pretty much sums everything up. Here's the chronology, or at least the Cliffs Notes version:

1. Girl suffers through Iowa winter.
2. Girl meets mysterious dancery type under some very unpleasant circumstances.
3. Girl proceeds to date mysterious dancery type, despite unpleasant circumstances and a desire to throw rocks at any boys in a ten-mile radius.
4. Chaos, chaos, anarchy, good dancing, more chaos, a little heartbreak, some really fun times.
5. Dancery type vanishes utterly without warning. Reader, he left me. I mean, what the hell? (Obviously, I wanted to get there first!)

Anyway, long story short is that I had this fantastic, busy, interesting summer, but didn't really say all that much about it because most of it revolved around a relationship that (a) I knew was going to end anyway (b) was really somewhat of a secret for most of its duration. These things are never normal, right?

But, the better part of a year later and I've just moved into a new fancy flat (also related to the late relationship, but oh well), bought a car to replace the ailing Sergei and ... most critically ... have my evenings and weekends to myself.

Which is brilliant, but what now, what next?

A friend told me, in all seriousness, to write a novel - or if nothing else, to try to do NaNoWriMo and approximate something vaguely novel-like just for getting things down on paper.

Another friend told me to get back into making the dancewear, and sent me a site with some incredibly droolworthy examples of tango costumes. Also a good idea.

Someone else just said to nurse the whole thing with wine and chick flicks until it goes away. That might work, too.

Anyway, despite all the emotional hullabaloo, it's actually kind of a relief, and it's good to be back among the living. Suggestions welcome. What now, what next?