Mommy's Pen

A writer's notes on family

You are here: Home / Archives for blogging

blogging

I Sprang from My Bed to See What Was the Matter, Then Had Some Time to Think

by

I am not the sort of person who stays up until midnight on New Year’s Eve. And it’s not just because I have a four-and-a-half-year old. Even before procreating I was incapable of staying awake past 10pm. So Saturday night, we all stayed up until 9pm, midnight in New York, and we brought in 2012 by live streaming the ball drop. Only we missed it by a few seconds, so it was just a lot of people kissing and screaming.  And then off to bed.

At midnight pacific standard time, fireworks started going off nearby. Very nearby.  They were loud and clearly illegal. I lay there wondering how many fireworks they could possible have. As the minutes wore on, I imagined a teenager working an $8 and hour summer job, then, because he still lives with his parents and has no real bills to pay, taking the entire $4000 earned after taxes and spending it at a fireworks tent in the parking lot of Albertsons.

I rose and peeked out each window of my house, looking for the source.  Nora stayed sleeping, or my rage would surely have turned murderous. I returned to bed and while waiting for the cortisol to leave system so I could sleep, I began reviewing the New Year’s Resolutions that had been floating through my head.

I know some folks are against the very idea of New Year’s resolutions, but I feel this sort of calendar driven goal setting is a natural human endeavor. People like to think they can pack their problems in a box and pack them away with the holiday trimmings; we simply will ourselves to be a better people with the posting of a new calendar on the kitchen wall. And why not? Resetting intention is about realizing we are imperfect, but not giving up our quest to become our best selves.

So, in no particular order, I present my 2012 New Year’s Resolutions:

  • Blog with discipline. I’ve justified my recent absence by telling myself everyone is too busy with friends and family this time of year to read my little blog anyway, but the truth is I’m a better writer when I’m doing it all the time. This week, I’ll decide on a posting schedule and stick to it.
  • Carve out time for dates with Ben. We have let this slip, and that’s a mistake. We need the time to just be with each other without the pull of housework and personal projects.
  • Remember to give the dog some attention. He’s such a good dog. And he won’t be around forever.
  • Make exercise more routine, and more of it yoga. Exercise is instrumental in blood sugar management, and yoga boosts the stress relief factor.
  • Explore Buddhism. From what I know so far, Buddhism is about training your mind to prevent the suffering you bring upon yourself. Sounds good to me.
  • Query new magazines, not just my three old standbys. I’m getting too comfortable with the places I’ve been published so far, it’s time to go beyond my comfort zone.
  • Be a little more tidy. This one is for Ben, really. But wouldn’t it be nice if he made a counter resolution to be a little more tolerant of mess? We could meet in the middle sometime around June.
How do you feel about resolutions? Are you making any this year?

5 Things I Learned from Dropping Out of NaNoWriMo

by

Tuesday evening, thousands of people uploaded a file to the NaNoWriMo.org site and declared victory.  They managed to write 50,000 words in 30 days.  My hat is off to them.  What a fantastic accomplishment.

I didn’t make it, but I did learn some things along the way:

  1. I can write fiction.   I’ve always written essays and memoir pieces; I didn’t think I had the imagination to write fiction.  And while the biggest plot twist in my novel was Ben’s idea, still, I was able to make up lots of stuff on my own.
  2. I don’t like writing crap for the sake of writing crap.  While I get it that the point of NaNoWriMo is to turn off your internal editor and give yourself permission to write junk, I didn’t care for that part.  Which is strange; that’s the part I thought I would love. I came up with most of my good ideas before NaNo officially started, during the outlining process.  It was painful to write line after line I could never use.
  3. I can write a blue streak for two weeks straight.  It felt great to make my word count for those first two weeks.  And I have a story I can work with over the long term.
  4. A month is too long to ignore my life — and ignoring sleep is not an option.  In the days just before NaNo started, I scrubbed my house and stuffed my fridge full of pre-cooked meals.  The house got dirty again in a day or two, and we ate all the food the first week.  Weeknights, there is only time to cook, eat, play with Nora and get her to bed.  I am loath to trade Nora time for writing.  Also, I am incapable of staying up past 8:30pm.  Thus, I fell behind on my word count – hopelessly so.  C’est la vie.
  5. I love blogging.  While there were lots of little reasons I threw in the towel, blogging was a big part of it.  I missed my blog and all of you.  I kept coming up with great post ideas (you should see my drafts folder right now!) that I wanted to work on right away.

Yes, I will probably try again next year.  But I may plan to take some additional time off that month.  My goal for the next few months is to read some of my favorites novels to figure the elements I was missing.  For the few months after that, I’ll work on my exisiting draft of about 25,000 words.  The writing will not stop.