My dear friend & neighbor, Marcy, is the one who told me about "NaNoWriMo." Marcy has a way of telling me about things that makes me reply, "Let's do it!"
As mentioned, the goal is 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th. This breaks down into 1,666-1,667 words per day. Marcy is BLOGGING her novel (which, she says, is turning into a series of essays on motherhood. Anyone who is either a mom and/or a person who enjoys laughter should check her out). My new friend & co-tourer, Brittany Baratz, is writing her confessions of a Jewish-American Princess: "JapYap." My friends are a riot. Me? 1,667 words/day sounded awful to me:), so I suggested that hubby & I tag-team a novel. And because he's that kind of dude, he was totally up for it.
We have been writing our novel together-from-afar since November 1st. I was literally planning on winging it, but hubby found story inspiration on a jog just before the start date. I loved his idea, so on Day 1 we both began spinning scenes around his idea. We called each other that night, and read aloud what we had written. Our voices were compleeetely different. But in a great way! So we decided to keep going down this path...each writing separately (at least 834 words/day), and sharing what we'd written by day's end so we can stay connected.
He is writing home life, contemporary voices, the heart of the story. I am writing the surrounding-life, ancient voices, the veins coming off of the heart.
We are 10 days in. It has been lovely to be surprised and impressed by my partner. It was exciting to begin writing on November 1st and realize that I had a story inside me, if only I forced my inner-critic to skip town for a while (30 days to be precise). As I am still on tour, my bits of the novel have been written in a couple different states already. I write in the van, in hotel rooms, in hotel lobbies, in coffeehouses, in bookstores. I write alone or with Brittany (me with my fish notebook, writing longhand, she typing away on a magenta laptop).
The last few days have been difficult (already!). We still have a healthy word-count, and are on track to have our 50,000 words before December, but furthering my story has been getting harder and harder. Guess that makes sense. At first, you can just throw all sorts of things at the page! But then, after a while, you feel the pressure to make a shape....
What we'll have at the end of all this might be a glorious mess with, at best, a tale to tell at cocktail parties. But it feels really good to be doing something I love *every* day, ESPECIALLY when it's hard. It feels really good to be making another something with my husband, to bond via bookish cheerleading with my fellow actor, to hop onto Twitter and realize that we are part of a worldwide community of crazy book-loving people who want to try their hand at creation.
And sometimes, there are moments like this:
