Week One

Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything seems to be ganging up against you?  This has been one of those weeks. This is my third attempt at updating my blog, and the gremlins in the machine keep conspiring to erase what I write.

But, enough of my grumbling. Week one of NaNoWriMo is finished and even though I tend to write in spurts rather than a steady pace, I’ve managed to keep up with the word count. It hasn’t been easy. Life has tried to keep me from my goal. A rejection letter threatened to tear a hole in the last of my confidence.

But that’s one thing I’ve learned about writing. It’s a journey, not a formula. No matter how good my outline is or how many words I set as a goal, life has a way of interrupting. And no matter how wonderful I think my story is, not everyone is going to like it, just like not everyone likes chocolate. (Difficult to believe, I know but I’ve met a few of these people, even called them my friends.)

And so this week, I got another lesson in perseverance. Instead of quitting NaNoWriMo when I was over 3,000 words behind on the first week, I used the extra hour we got on Sunday and woke up early to write in the quiet before church. Instead wallowing in self-pity (okay, I wallowed a little) I wrote a nice thank-you letter to the editor who’d rejected my manuscript and asked if she’d read it again if I made some revisions, to which she immediately agreed.

So now, week two of NaNoWriMo begins and I’m only a couple hundred words behind. I’m off now to take care of the little things that are important to my family, things like laundry and grocery shopping, but I’ll be back at the computer as soon as I’m able, ready to continue on this journey called writing.