Even though I still ponder whether the world needs my novel, I am still prepping for NaNo, which starts this Saturday. My goal is to finish Prodigies at a clip of 1000 words per day, or 30,000 words for the month-long session. That's a lot of words, yet I've written 50,000 words or more during regular NaNo season.
I used to write at a much more relaxed pace, a short story here, a poem there, and occasionally a chunk of song lyrics. I mostly used to write about my feelings without much artistry (although in my defense, without too much cliché.) On rare occasions, I would show someone and they'd say "That's really nice."
I wanted to know how good I was and how good I could be. I read others' poetry, and felt I didn't quite have what contemporarily published poets had in terms of their raw emotion and immediate imagery. At the same time, I had to write my truth, which was that of a woman who lives her life in a clear glass bubble, sequestering her emotions. I felt an affinity with Emily Dickinson, another woman who lived in her own clear glass bubble, and I remembered that she died with most of her poems unread. My own truth has a very limited audience -- 385 hits a week. or about 45 hits a day (Thanks, readers!)
Once I found out from my first NaNo that I can write over 50,000 words with a coherent plot, I realized I could write novels. However, I didn't know that I could write good novels. I wrote those novels about other people, other situations, other plots -- yet we write what we know, so the brittle beauty and the emotional turmoil still show up.
I hoped to prove my talent by getting an agent and, eventually, getting published. That has not happened. I have gotten over 200 rejections, and almost all of these read "This isn't grabbing me" or some variation. I may still write novels. I may burn out and develop a project obsession (although we don't have enough room room in the yard for a 4-season greenhouse with a hot tub. Believe me, I measured).
I'm rethinking a lot of things right now. But I will still finish those 30,000 words.
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