What I’ve Learned this November

So Monday night I typed until my fingertips were sore and the little word counter on my writing application said “50,011″ and raced over to paste the text of my novel-shaped item into the official NaNoWriMo meter, whereupon it cheerily congratulated me on having written 49,850 words. I don’t know if that means I used a lot of hyphenated words that my counter counted as two and theirs as one, but… even though it was just after 1 a.m. and I had parent teacher conferences scheduled for 8:30 Tuesday morning, I figured I could punch out 150 more words, and ten bleary minutes later I was retrieving my proud little NaNoWriMo badge for my blog. I announced my count on Twitter, and went to bed, and I was grateful to wake up Tuesday to lots of 140 character congratulatory notes (I love Twitter!).

Tuesday was busy, with back-to-back conferences with teachers for three sons taking up three hours of the morning, a dentist appointment for all four boys in the afternoon, and, for my evening’s entertainment, the horror of a bathroom that had seen only cursory cleaning for weeks (did I mention four boys?) and needed attention before my parents’ arrival today (despite their regular averrings that I don’t need to clean before their arrival, I have my standards, after all). So I didn’t wander around from room to room feeling pointless and empty without a word count to meet, which, actually I had worried might happen, but I also didn’t feel the elated relief I remember from last year.

It wasn’t that the writing wasn’t enjoyable, it was just that the first time came with this disbelief, that I was actually capable of applying myself for thirty days to one thing and finishing a draft. And I never wanted to read it again after that. This year, I had that under my belt, and it was a question of whether I could put together something I liked. And even though I completed the story, and in fewer days than last year, I have more of a sense of unfinished business.

And I’m thinking about what this means, what the differences are between last year and this year, why I don’t feel so triumphant. What I’ve written this year pleases me more than what I did last year. I was more public about declaring my intentions, and thus having my internet support lines who could cheer my growing wordcount and offer encouragement. I learned that 2,000 words a day is something I can do between the time I put the kids to bed and the time I go to bed without getting too miserable. Still, this was lonely. I wasn’t a good online friend, was often preoccupied, and not the best mother I could be, and, on the days when Raven actually was in town, not the most companionable wife. I didn’t see as much of my friends in real life, and I missed my blog, missed just putting out ideas and getting feedback. I fear the cost of the exercise was too high for everyone else in my life, but I don’t know how to balance my needs and theirs, waver between thinking this was a little selfish, a little vain, and feeling like writing is the selkie-skin I keep in my hope chest, having to go and longingly stroke every once in a while just to remind myself of who I really am. I didn’t write for years and years and only arrived back at it after months of drowning in post partum lostness. The idea of NOT writing makes my lower lip tremble because then I would only be an empty shell of a person.

I’ve been thinking — not too much, and without a lot of defensiveness, actually — about the Twitterer who said he was tired of hearing about NaNoWriMo and thought novel-writing should be left to the professionals. I do so many things as not exactly a dilettante, but not as a professional either, the music with the kids, the occasional art class — the blogging. And I do them sort of the way I do exercise, because, they feel like part of a balanced life, they’re more gratifying than watching television or washing the dishes. This is something more. I think I stop feeling defensive about the time I spent writing non-professionally to others when I stop feeling defensive about it to myself. Without feedback — without even having gone through and read the thing in one sitting, I have no idea what it is I typed or what value it has. I don’t have any perspective on any of it yet. But even though I am not walking around elated, and have no sense of the writing-as-product, the process felt very much worth it, loneliness and all.

At some point, maybe when I’ve had a full night or two of sleep, I’ll think more critically about what “professional” means to me, and what sort of credentials are worth believing in, what systems of credentials mean. Tonight I just realize I cannot take myself writing seriously, I cannot take myself writing unseriously, and I find the whole thing a little bewildering.