What’s Up Wenzday 05/14/14 – #AtoZChallenge – #Womanhood – #ROW80
What’s Up Wenzday #1: AtoZChallenge… NaNoWriMo
Thought I forgot my promise to complete the A to Z Blogging Challenge? Ha!
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November. During those 30 days, writers ‘round the world promise to produce at least 50k words toward a new project.
Camp NaNo is a lot more lenient. It takes place during the summer months, and writers get to choose their own word counts and their own projects without having to label themselves as rebels.
I meant to participate in Camp NaNo during April, but I neglected to get around to it, beyond signing up and talking about it. I totally blame AtoZ. Except that I didn’t finish AtoZ, either. So that leaves it as being my own fault, and let’s just move on then shall we, mmm-kay.
So.
The next Camp NaNo takes place in July.
And I really mean it this time – I am FOR REALZ going to work on my novel. And you should, too. Let’s be buddies! My name over there is Andrejia. Look me up in the camp directory.
Here’s why I think it’s important for writers to participate in NaNo-whatever:
Most of us are very caught up in making our writing perfect. We are grammar Nazis. We love finding just-the-right-word to convey meaning. We can spend days on one sentence.
All this is awesome, and I don’t in any way whatsoever mean to diminish the importance of polishing your creation.
But that’s just it – you have to create something to polish! And a lot of us – myself included! – can’t move past the word {or scene or chapter or plot point} we’re stuck on until we work through the knot.
Participating in a writing challenge allows writers to gives themselves permission to just skip the knot.
My daughter is nine-years-old, about to finish 3rd grade. She will spend an hour – AN HOUR, you guys! – struggling with a particular math problem without moving on to any of the other problems on the worksheet. And usually when she comes to me for help, she’s completely frustrated and too distraught to even consider working on any math at all.
We have been working on this “new” concept all school year: Skip the ones you don’t know, and finish up the rest.
Under the “old” way of doing things, it’s amazing to me that she’ll have spent an hour on a worksheet with only two problems completed.
Under the “new” way of doing things, it’s amazing to HER that the worksheet is almost completed except for that one problem.
But she won’t skip ahead without my reminder that it’s okay to do so.
We are taught from a very early age to think in a linear direction. Schools try to keep us in a box. Society gives us labels. It usually doesn’t even dawn on us that we are allowed to think in a circle instead of a line… that we don’t have to stay in the box… that we can take off the labels. We don’t want to get in trouble, or do things the wrong way.
You guys.
It’s ART. You aren’t going to get in trouble, and there is no wrong way.
I can skip ahead. I can come back to the part I don’t know later. I can copy/paste a definition and add a note to myself that I’d like to find a different word because the one I thought of sucks even though it kinda/sorta conveys the correct feeling. I can use placeholders instead of names when characters aren’t clearly drawn in my mind. I can sum up a paragraph by saying, “This is the love scene which I shall write later because I’m not feeling very romantic. So blah-kiss-blah-blah.”
I can, in fact, get sloppy and make a huge fucking mess of things.
Art is not just the polish. It’s also the process. It’s the product in all its various stages of growth.
NaNoWriMo reminds me of this.
Visit to see who I tried to make time for during April 2014. I didn’t make it around to everybody on this list, but I meant to. So you should visit them for me. Tell them I said hi.
Or stop by my post The Great and Powerful AtoZ Challenge Theme Reveal to see a list of all my 2014 AtoZ entries.
What’s Up Wenzday #2: Womanhood.
So I have this odd heart-flutter thing going on that doctors swear is normal. It sure doesn’t feel normal. It accompanies migraines and cramps and back ache that makes me feel like I’m in labor. Which is interesting because I can’t have any more babies, given that my daughter tore up my insides during her painful ejection from my gut.
So there I was, unable to conceive, and still getting monthly periods… which, to add more ridiculous-ness to the mix, appeared to be getting closer and closer together. Hooray for the 21-day menstrual cycle! I enjoy useless bleeding out my vagina every THREE weeks instead of every FOUR weeks. It’s awesome.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
But seriously – if I can’t have more kids, it’s stupid that I have to menstruate. Every time Mother Nature pays a visit, I get bitter and angry. Oh, and also ridiculously tired, to the point that I can’t hardly keep my eyes open, and my body basically shuts down, so that I spend about a week just sleeping every chance I can get.
All this nonsense was supposed to come to an end when I had a procedure done several months ago called a uterine ablation, which essentially means that my baby-growing cavity got scraped clean. Most women experience a much lighter flow afterward; many stop bleeding altogether.
ME? Yeah. Instead, it got worse. And the best part is that I never went for the follow-up because I no longer had insurance at that time. I have coverage, again, though.
Can’t wait to see my gyno and cry unto her, “WTF? Make it stop!”
What’s Up Wenzday #3: My Three Words
My Three Words 2014
(A) SING:
Trying to fix some mic issues. Something about “I don’t like how the gurgling of the fish tank can be heard in the background.” You know, that sort of thing. So while singing is on, recording has been off. Almost halfway through the year. Gotta get this shit fixed.
(B) MONCHU:
Yeah, so part of my monchu dumped me. Whatever.
I can still celebrate the friendships I still have. My sister and my writing partner deserve better than the measly attention I have been showing them. Must remedy that. I’ll be making calls toward that end.
(C) FOLLOW-THROUGH:
My body is broken right now so follow-through can basically suck a dick.
What’s Up Wenzday #4: ROW80
I am participating in A Round of Words in 80 Days {#ROW80}. Come ROW with me!
(A) RUN:
My body is broken right now so exercise can basically suck a dick.
(B) ORGANIZE:
My body is broken right now so organizing can basically suck a dick.
(C) WRITE:
(a) Blog:
I loved my free trial of CoSchedule and if I wasn’t a po’ ass I would totes sign up for it. But, alas… $10 per month is just a wee bit steep for a bloggy-blog that ain’t bringing in the cash. Abbie’s Magic Eight Ball says “it is decidedly so” that my book will be published, so when I’m all rich and shit then I will invest the $120 annual fee.
But jeezy – that’s more costly than Amazon Prime, which at the very least allows me to watch movies.
(b) Book:
My body is broken right now so writing my book can basically suck a dick.
Okay, that’s not entirely the way I feel. Maybe I will head to Miss Molly’s tomorrow and pound some keys while drowning in Coca-Cola… if I can stay awake long enough. Maybe my writing partner will be able to join me.
(D) SMILE:
My body is broken right now so smiling can basically suck a dick.
Haha – just kidding.
I smiled a lot on Mother’s Day.
Until I died.
What’s Up Wenzday #5: BOOKS
OF BEES AND MIST, by Erick Setiawan, was beautiful, amazing, lyrical, poetic, fantastical, funny, and tragic. So well-written, and the story line ran the gamut of emotions. Kept me guessing as to what was real versus vision versus dream… still not sure I understood it all, but in that “I want to read it again” kind of way. Can’t say enough good here. Go read it.
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, by Stephen Chbosky – who also, it just so happens, wrote the screenplay – was endearing and gorgeous. It made me cry and laugh and hurt and feel all the feels. One of the few times I saw the movie before reading the book, and one of the few times I didn’t mind the differences between the book and the movie. Well done on both counts!
DIVERGENT and INSURGENT, books 1 and 2 of the series by Veronica Roth, each kept me up all night. I can see why the series has been compared to THE HUNGER GAMES, but these stand firm on their own. Fast reads that nicely fill my hunger for dystopia. Currently working through the third book in the series, which I’ll mention next week.
And that’s what’s up Wenzday!
Hope your Hump-Day is full of hump-ish good times. I’d love to hear what’s up with *YOUR* Wenzday.
- How are your Resolutions or Three Words or Goals or what-have-you coming along?
- How goes your ROWS?
- Why aren’t you writing?
- What books have you loved lately?
