Na-na-na, No-no-no, ho-ho-ho, oh kablooey…

in a matter of hours (i’ve stopped counting – well, not really, i keep peeking at the countdown clock at NANOWRIMO’s home page about 3 times a day) the madness will begin. and i do mean madness. i feel pretty motivated for the project this year, you know, write a 50,000 word “novel” in just 30 days. have a story nestled in the recesses of my mind just waiting to be released by my fingers onto the electronic screen. and i think it will be a pretty good story too. it will be a little similar to my last successful nanowrimo attempt, Cemetery Man; Requiem for a Loner because a lot of the story will tap into real life experiences but i’m going to try to take it a little bit closer to the edge of real fiction and create a story for you that has NOT happened in my real life. my story-telling language will not be much different than my last book. hopefully that will be to the liking of my established readers, and hopefully it may attract some new readers.

i’ve been thinking for awhile why it is that i have to wait till November to be able to sit down and write a serious piece of literature. why can’t i write all year long and pour out book after book after book. i’ve talked about this quite a bit in my blog, the bipolar, the mix of being a dual media artist; writer/photographer, but i also think there is more to it. fear. i’m afraid of the commitment to the practice of writing every single day. i’m afraid of writing so much, too much that might turn into rubbish. it takes a lot of work to keep track of all the things that you write on a computer. there are filing systems you need to organize, and there is the editing and rewriting. i think more of the crux for me though is spirit. i really try to write from my spirit, not from my mind and well, this is a rather exhausting method. for me at least.

spirit needs renewal to be able to stay pure and active, and when i pour my spirit into a story it’s kind of like experiencing a sexual climax. i feel a little exhausted afterwards. in fact, i feel a little “dead” after i write a really strong piece. le petite morte, eh? when i finished writing Cemetery Man it took me a year before i even felt able to open up the pages and start the task of rereading and editing that text because the material was so vital and well, true. it was hard, yet equally amazing to go back into it but i needed time for it to settle down after i wrote it because it came up from such deep recesses of my soul.

maybe this new text will be different. i am excited about writing it because it has a lot of new ideas in it that i’ve been toying with, but it also goes into deeper, older places too. i had said that the original story was a prequel to a “bigger novel” that i’ve been working on for a number of years now and that after writing Cemetery Man i felt like mental and heart space had been cleared out so that the deeper, bigger novel could come out. well, i hate to disappoint you but it looks like this new story will NOT be that bigger novel, not yet at least. in fact, this new piece i’m going to write may actually be the closing sequel to “the trilogy”, if you will. that middle story, the really important one, i don’t think i want to do it during a nanowrimo. it’s going to take more care and nurturing, BUT, getting this ending story out will help me understand the middle, bigger story better. does that make sense?

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anyway, it’s been Halloween for about two weeks now it seems. people partied last weekend. they are partying this weekend. and Halloween is not even until tomorrow. funny, i don’t even really care. i mean, i adore Halloween and am glad that the inhabitants of the real/normal world get into a spirit, a mood, and embrace the darkness for awhile, but to me, Halloween goes on all year long. my main way to celebrate Halloween is to watch more horror films. something i do all year long anyway. i don’t go to parties. i don’t dress up. i don’t hand out candy. call me an All Hallows Scrooge if you will, but really, if you are a genuine goth, you live the life everyday, right?