It’s the end of the second NaNoProgMo. Here’s my tally for the month, not what I’d aimed for, but certainly more than it would have been. For me, that’s the whole idea… Progress. I even got some great ideas while procrastinating from working on my NaNoProgMo story. What is it about procrastination that opens the floodgates to creativity?

Big Huge Thanks to Lauren and to our other participants, Renae at The Paranormalist, and Zen Mummy. 

I hope that we can do this again, maybe with some more advanced notice and get even more energy going. We need to think of some ways to support and motivate each other, without taking time away from our writing. Any ideas? I’m thinking presents, of course. I’ve very much like my 4 year old in that.

And now, for a random ponder about writing…. I was driving the other day and I thought of something awful. I don’t know why. It’s part of my anxiety disorder that I sometimes have to think about the worst possible thing that can happen. I used to do that as a kid and my comfort would be that once I imagined that and figured out how to either survive it or not survive it… all my problems were solved. Either way. Of course, since becoming a mother there is no safe place. Even “not surviving” is not a comfort if I can’t keep my child safe. And now I know that there are worse things than anything that could have happened to me before, things I couldn’t bear to survive.

So… as I drove along and thought about some “story” that would probably be really moving and good and interesting, I knew I couldn’t even begin to ponder it further. This was just something about a mother who walked away from her life, including her child. It hurt my heart just to imagine it.

I guess it’s a problem. I can’t seem to write anything that I’m not willing to experience pretty deeply. I actually fear some thoughts. Is it my tenuous grasp on reality or some kind of God complex where I believe I can conjure anything into being with words? Maybe both.

And then I think of Stephen King. I don’t know how he does it. I’ve tried writing scary things and letting myself go farther into the terror. I scare the crap out of myself.

I believe it to be my weakness as a writer. Stephen King doesn’t have this weakness. And I think he’s a brilliant writer. I love him. I can’t read his horror, but I will love him forever for The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption. He is a good writer. Plain and simple.

By the way, if you haven’t read On Writing, by Stephen King, you might want to. It’s one of my all time favorite books about writing along with Bird by Bird by Anne Lam0tte and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.