October begins on Wednesday and the mad-cap planning for National Novel Writing Month begins: I started mine already, having rejected three other novels which would take far more than a month or two to plan out and write. Trying to focus on the story begs the question of whether I’m cut out for the novelling life, poetical endeavours. NaNo is the test of faith for any writer, an Arthurial challenge to test one’s devotion to one’s characters, stories and verses.
I have enjoyed scribbling verses since childhood and, later in life, original stories (and gods forgive me, Mary-sue fanfictions, for a necessary bout of escapism). But whether or not I have the determination to complete a novel and ignore all doubts that I have about it’s plot, realism and reception is an entirely different arena. Every novelist or poet struggles with this, I know, but it’s always that feeling that YOU are the worst writer in the world; YOU will be mocked and jeered by a hundred sneering critics, like some village idiot thrown into the mud.
The more I look at my NaNo plot, the more I think of it as something akin to a soap-opera storyline and I fear ever more that I will give up halfway through, beaten down by my own fears. I try to take my friend Steph’s advice: just to keep writing and writing and writing and hell be damned, it’s no one’s business what goes from my mind onto computer or paper. I only wish I had that kind of courage.
I will write. I wont have anyone thinking that I wont. Wish me luck!
Honour the glorious poets. Their shades that left us are now returned.
Woodsmoke