NaNoWriMo

Am I a writer? I used to think so. I wrote 50,000 (not very good) words for NaNoWriMo in 2004.

I am not working. I am not writing. It's a balmy 80 degrees outside and I sit inside, unable to work on my current project or to come up with an idea for a new one.

I've written approximately 600 words for NaNoWriMo since the 1st of November. I feel like someone looked at me and said that I HAVE to write, and my response to that is the perverse impulse to do the opposite.

I told my father once that I never thought of myself as ambitious. He then proceeded to tell me the story of my efforts to get a teaching degree. The way he told it, I had ambition when it mattered. I wish that I could talk to him, if only to have him remind me of the way he saw me.

Would I be able to push myself to write things were my dad around to encourage me? Maybe. He and my mother seemed to like reading some of my writing.

I am having an extended self-pity party, brought on by my perceived inability to write anything non-derivative. On the project before this one, I found myself copying the opening sequence of another author's story without knowing it. Though being ten years younger, female and a different nationality might have imparted some difference in approach.

If I had any ability to follow through on goals (other than that one time), I might make some. As it is, I just want to not be a teacher until I retire. That's a goal, I guess.