*"I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.” ~ Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
Writing the Great American Novel
Writing an American Novel
Writing a great novel
Writing a novel
Writing
I have pinky-swore my friend, Margaret, who lives in
Pennsylvania (and who I am sure is my baby sister from another mother) that I
will do NaNoWriMo with her this year.
NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, held every November since
2006. The idea is to write every day,
November 1 through November 30, aiming for a 50,000-word completed project. That's between 1500 and 2000 words a day. Every day.
So, roughly 10 times what I have written above, which with a nice long
quote at the top, is now at 191 words.
Margaret, at age 27, has completed writing her first novel
(or at least the first one I know about), has completed the second of the
trilogy (I’m fairly certain) and has
outlines for the third. (She also works at a small independent bookstore - my dream job.)
At 60, I have not yet written a novel. I’ve written lots of serious blog posts and lots of nonsensical poems and song lyrics meant primarily for the women in my writing circle and others with my similar weird sense of humor (and love of Dr. Fauci).
I had planned to complete a novel this year. It was part of my grand plan for 60, to honor my mom, who died - far too young - at 60.
Not much of my grand plan was completed, however, and I blame Covid. Granted, I (like the world) was homebound for many many months, and had lots of time to complete my works in progress, but I was busy. Busy worrying.
I just couldn’t concentrate on writing.
Or reading.
I did a lot of knitting there for awhile, but that lost its sparkle, as well, when the darling Norwegian knitters I was following and knitting along with contracted Covid and became very ill – how could I go on? (They are much better now, by the way, and have been YouTubing their driving vacation in Northern Norway, which has now become the #2 destination on my post-Covid travel bucket list, right after Austin, Texas and a visit with Grandma Shirley, whose birthday happens to be today.)
I sewed, which seemed to be the one thing I could concentrate on and not let my mind wander to the ultimate destruction of humanity by Covid or packing the Supreme Court or government deregulations leading to increased fracking and eased environmental protections leading to enhanced climate change leading to the incineration of the planet.
After you put a sewing machine needle right through your fingernail, you learn to concentrate on your sewing.
But I didn't write my novel. Oh, I have started two. One took shape last year, inspired by my writing circle. It is fun, but I don't have any idea where it is headed.
The other - my "first novel", the novel I left my last paying job for and which I’ve been working on for several years now -- is a highly fictionalized account of what happened to my family (and over 200 other families) when the land we lived on became the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge.
I want readers to know the story of how the idyllic farm (at least in my 8-year-old’s memory) was condemned by the federal government. Of how my parents and grandparents took the United States of America to court, initially hoping to stop the seizure of the land, and that failing, arguing that they be paid a fair amount per acre, in order to be able to buy an equal amount of land outside of the refuge boundaries and continue farming (that part, they won).
Of how eminent domain, a set of laws
established for “the good of the people” brought with it broken hearts and
broken spirits. And yet, I want to
capture all the sweetness of the life we had.
The beauty of the farm. The hard,
hard work. Milking and butchering and
harvest and planting. All the cool and disgusting and fun and stinky things we
did just because of where we lived -- on a farm.
I want people to know about my amazing grandma’s love of her neighbors and
her unspoken yet loud competition with her sister. I want to write about my smart, smart dad and
my sweet, loving mom.
Because I want to write something people would want to read, would
carry with them in their hearts and their heads for awhile. And if those people are
just my people – not the general reading public who buy my published book in
their favorite small independent bookstore – that’s ok. I once thought maybe my writing would make me
famous – now, I just want my writing to make me happy.
Will I complete NaNoWriMo? Probably not. Or maybe. Consistency and stick-to-it-tiveness are not my strong suits. I have 2 pretty good chapters - 23,000 words - of novel #2 (which I've tentatively titled Writing Class - how clever, right?) written. Four years of writing later, I have 69,000 words in a mishmash of “chapters” of novel #1, Bright Fields (a variation of my grandma's maiden name).
Something could happen, I guess. I could surprise myself and write every day.
So I am going to try really hard this November. Just for myself. And my kids, so maybe someday they can say, here’s what our mom accomplished.
And for Margaret, of course.
Peace
*image courtesy of NaNoWriMo
