Fare Thee Well, November

National Novel Writing Month

Last night at midnight, National Novel Writing Month ended.  I was asleep.  I missed the Writing Dangerously Write-A-Thon and all of the weekly meetings that had been posted.  Life was weird this month.

I also didn’t come close to the actual 1667 words a day for my novel, and I’m not really upset.  If I counted all the stuff I did write regarding my story, the journal entries that revolved around future character actions and possible uses for things I’d seen in my wanderings, I easily passed the minimum goal.

The biggest bummer is that I didn’t log in yesterday to the site and post my actual word count, and when I checked today, I found I’d missed the chance to actually validate what I’d written.  Heck, I still need to type it in…  I’d have had to ask someone to do my validation for me, then throw stuff into the Lorem Ipsum Generator to get it validated on the site.  This year I wasn’t organized enough for that.

But NaMo loss or not, I found the month a delight.  It got me back into my story world in a way I hadn’t thought of.  Maybe I’ll take a few snapshots of some of the notebook pages just for the joy of it.  They are quite the sight given how much chicken scratching I put in the margins.  The old response folders Dee and I used to write were neater in their genesis.  At least Atyr stood up for herself and became a person who did what she wanted, not what I was trying to get her to do.  And while it made a lot of problems for me in the short term, I am finding I like her stronger character.  I haven’t even started working on Alanii or Valistii’s sections.  I’ve done some musing on them and already know that Alanii is going to be as pigheaded as his wife.  Valistii?  If I don’t try to kill him with my pen, I think we’ll be doing well.

It’s delightful!

Well, since this proved to b the case, I decided that I’d go for something a bit different.  The way this year’s NaMo helped my state of my mind and my ability to deal with life, I know now that I am a truly better person when I am writing.  And looking at Inky Girl’s page, I found exactly what I needed.  Why I hadn’t seen it before, I can’t say.  But this is exactly what I need, though not just for 6 weeks.   She has a link for 1000 words, and I’m sure sometimes I will achieve that.  I did here and there during NaMo.  I just know that there were enough days that I barely wrote anything that it is best if I balance my efforts over the week and rely, at least at the moment, on an average per day rather than demand a set daily quota.  It’ll be enough to pick up the pen and write every day, perhaps on CTSS or my journal, or even letters to my son’s teachers or my family.

After all, the goal of NaMo and all such courses is to instill a writing habit more than anything.  And that is what I’m aiming for.

Hoarding

On a side note: My darling husband sent me this link from MSNBC.com.  Given our recent visit to my grandparent’s house, I know why he did it.  It bothers me too, since it highlights how little even the so called experts of this issue.  The gist of this and its companion article suggest that hoarders are seemingly unaware of their problem, but having seen it all my life, I know this isn’t always the case.  Maybe it’s never the case…  Statements like “I don’t want anyone coming over anyway” or “Don’t move anything, I’ll never find it again” are just symptoms of the same loss of control and dismay that is symptomatic of the whole disorder.

The information on the brain development of such people was fascinating.  Though, as with everything else, I wonder if the development issues are a development of genetics, trauma, or experience (the brain prioritizing what it needed through the time the person matured).  How much can be changed?  How much should?  All behaviors have a reason for coming into existence.  What directed this evolutionary path?

I don’t claim to have any answers to this.  It is an issue I myself fight with daily.  I have to remind myself to throw something–anything–no matter how small away everyday.  It helps that I’m obsessive about dirt in many ways.  At least I do tend to go through my clutter regularly looking for stuff that is just too disgusting to keep.  Issues upon issues…  My issues with germs and infestations have saved me from being overrun–that and an amazingly patient husband.  But it hasn’t cleaned the books off the floor.

 

 

A Lucky Find

I’ve been reading a lot lately. A lot more mature reading that is, as opposed to the daily renditions of Ollie the Stomper and Waddle, Waddle, Quack, Quack, Quack….

Today I finished A Lucky Child by Judge Thomas Buergenthal, a memoir of his experiences during the Holocaust. Justice Buergenthal’s book made me actually get past admiring his words and on to trying to find a way to contact him. I haven’t yet, but I have found more wonderful things he has written.

One is this address where he speaks to members of the American Bar Association. It struck a chord because I had traveled to Europe earlier this decade as well and experienced much the same sense of disappointment regarding American policies at the times in my discussions with people overseas. I felt as if Dr. Buergenthal had stepped into my head and said things I’d thought and felt. When I get the opportunity, I intend to thank him for his words and the chance I had to share his experience and kindness through them. (Update: I believe I have found Justice Buergenthal’s email through George Washington University.)

—- Some other reading I’ve done on the Holocaust and similar human tragedies…. I say tragedies, but most of these tragedies have created some of the greatest triumphs of humanity as well as some of its defeats. The people who wrote these stories or are the subject of these stories are amazing human beings.

The Invisible Wall: Germans and Jews; a personal exploration by W. Michael Blumenthal

Spirit of Survival by Gail Sheehy

A Cup of Tears: a Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto by Abraham Lewin and Antony Polosky

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about survivors of late. I sometimes wonder why, but I have never regretted choosing these books. More than the love poems of Rumi or the religious texts of the Bible, the Talmud, the Tao Te Ching, or Qur’an, more than Shakespeare‘s compendium of masterpieces, I find these stories the most inspiring I have read.