Not another failed writer blog

Photography by Ivan Prole, www.proledesign.com

I've been on a sabbatical. And, honestly, I think I did it wrong.

See, a sabbatical, to me, means taking time off from what you usually do in order to do something that you would much rather be doing. Instead, I had to stop doing what I really wanted to do in order to focus on the things that I really, really didn't want to do, not one little bit, not at all.

Such is the life of a lawyer. So I thought.

In March, after one of the longest years of my life, I quit my steady paycheck job (I won't call it well-paying, especially given the ratio of my salary versus hours worked, although I did manage to make ends meet for a little while), and set off into the great wide world of being a solo practitioner.

I couldn't be happier with this decision.

It's only been a month, but my quality of life has improved dramatically. My clients love me more, I love them more, and I love what I do about 1000% more (yes that extra zero is intentional). I'm connecting with people and looking them in the eye, as opposed to meeting them with a glassy-eyed, barely-there stare. I'm awake.

And, an unexpected benefit, I get to write more; in fact, some of my freelance clients came back to me, and I have a nice steady side income doing even MORE of what I love.

Does anyone have it better than I do, really?

The aftershocks of my prior life are still resonating. When I get done with work at 6pm instead of 8pm, I feel a colossal pang of guilt. Sometimes, if things are slow, I feel crippling anxiety and uselessness, even though the initial numbers are comforting. It's weird the psychological loops we get caught up in, isn't it? I may not have as many hours of work. But they are meaningful hours. And that's important.

I'm still adjusting to this idea that work can consist of things I like to do, instead of things I have to suffer through. I'm glad that I'm coming to this realization now, instead of later, before I suffered some permanent damage.

And now, if I really want to, in addition to being the lawyer I always dreamed of being, maybe I can also be the writer I always dreamed of being.

Camp NaNoWriMo!

May and June snuck up on me. I am pretty sure they were in cahoots. Plotting all throughout April to ambush me and catch me unawares. Before I realized it, July was here. And boy, did July drag.

While May and June flew by with the speed of a thousand irate wasps, July has plodded along, kind of moping, really, like an uninvited guest that has overstayed its welcome, that cannot just take the hint and seriously you need to leave before I throw you out of MY HOUSE. Ahem.

August comes as a bit of a relief. August, I think, will be An Improvement.

One reason is the very title of this entry: Camp NaNoWriMo. The very title makes me want to parody the theme song from that old Nickelodeon show, Salute Your Shorts. (Y'know... "Camp Annawanna, we hold you in our hearts, and when we think about you...")

Camp NaNoWriMo is basically NaNoWriMo in the summer. Rather than having to wait all the way til November to recklessly go where few novelists have gone before, though, you can pick the summer month of your choice - June or August (or both) - and use your novel as an excuse for not having more of a tan and avoiding the life-threatening rays of the sun during these sweltering times.

I tried to do Camp NaNoWriMo last year but failed kind of miserably. I had a major surgery a couple days into it and never quite recovered the word count (though my health recovered quite nicely, it just took longer than expected). I've successfully defeated NaNoWriMo: The November Version on a few different occasions, including with the book that I'm currently editing to publish by the end of the summer, which I wrote during my first NaNoWriMo back in 2007. I'm hoping lightning will strike a second time as I plan to write the sequel over the next 31 days.

If you're interested in taking on the challenge yourself, hop on over to the Camp NaNoWriMo website to sign up. You'll get assigned a cabin, which will be your support group for the month, and the tools to track your noveling progress. The goal is the same as traditional NaNoWriMo: write a 50,000 word novel in the span of one month. In August, which is a 31-day month, that equals 1,613 words per day, which is roughly two and a half pages, depending on font/font size. This entry is currently about 400 words at this point. And now it's more. And more. And more. And more. And...

Anyways. 

Are you doing Camp NaNoWriMo this year?

The Pact: Did It Work? And, A Request for Recommendations

Well, for those who were paying attention to our "Terms" page know that today should be the day that three novelists each finished the first drafts of their books and exchanged them for editing and critiquing purposes.

I will be finished with my final round of self-editing tonight. I have 8000 more words to edit and one more scene to add to round out the story, and since I know where I'm headed, I'm about 99% certain I'll have it wrapped up before midnight (barring some unusual catastrophe).

Unfortunately, I don't think my compatriots are quite in the same spot. And I understand. Half the posts I've written on this blog have been about how life is tough, and it's difficult to be a writer + something else and succeed at both. Usually it's the writing that ends up suffering. Which, when you have a life, a job, a family, bills to pay, etc, it's hard to ignore the fact that it tends to come across as a leisure activity, and is therefore less important.

I am a lucky woman. While I have an exceptionally time-consuming job (introduce me to a lawyer that doesn't), I also have a husband that believes in my writing. He has picked up the slack for the last several months, keeping our place clean and letting me have my space so I can plough on towards this goal. He tells me time and again how much he thinks I'm going to succeed at this, that I need to make it a priority, that it is going to pay off in the long run. I want a family, but I don't have one yet, and when you're pursuing an endeavor like writing-on-the-side, that tends to work to your advantage.

So. I'm almost done self-editing. Sadly, but understandingly, the writers I started this challenge with probably aren't in a position to take up hours of their time with critiquing my book while getting nothing in return from me. It's a little bit of a quandary. I know I'm not ready to hit "publish" yet, I don't even have a cover, but I think I need some editing services. Or at least a couple people to read my book and provide an opinion (and maybe a couple typo corrections).

I'm aware there are tons of editors out there that I can hire. And I'm more than willing to do so. But not without a suggestion. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.

Conquest

Things I will conquer this week:

1) Second edit of the first 1/3 of my novel
2) Walking and Yoga 5 out of 7 days
3) Stick to Weight Watchers Points
4) Clean something each day, even if it's small
5) Take my vitamins each day

The yoga is already making a difference, I think. I felt more energetic today. I've managed to plow through my to-do list, and physically my body is not resisting me as much. My mind is still a bit sluggish, but when I got home from work today, I felt like I shook off my cobwebs and got down to business with what I needed to accomplish - cleaning a little, cooking a little, exercising a little, editing a little. It's a nice feeling after walking around in an unproductive haze for who knows how long.

I'm looking forward to seeing how my yoga improves my riding experience. I noticed my back muscles were feeling really fatigued after riding on Friday and Saturday, probably because I've just let my core become so weak and now I'm re-adapting to balancing on a motorcycle. Hopefully I'll notice a difference if I get a chance to ride again on Friday!