You Are Not Serious...

 Dear Camp NaNoWriMo, 

You sneaky little thing, where did you come from? How did you get in here? We're still in January, aren't we? 

No, no, we are not and with the world waking up to April the first, and the errors in comedy of April Fools day, writers the world over will be waking up from their hibernation since the end of November - because it takes that long to recover - and starting work on Project [INSERT NAME HERE]. In usual NaNoWriMo style, I have no idea what I am doing but did muse another blog everyday challenge before realising I have attempted these for the last few camps and I have failed to an epic degree because consistency is not one of my strong points. I know this, I appreciate it, it's a part of me and I accept it, even if it is a giant pain in my ass. 

Something that is great though is *it's not NaNoWriMo*. Well, it is, but it's not, but it is, whilst it's also sat there being, well, not. 

Camp NaNoWriMo evolved from a couple of events really and so it's possible to write a novel, but it's equally possible for it to be a short stories month or for it to be like the old Script Frenzy and be the perfect time to write - get this - a script, but it's also a space to edit, finish writing, redraft or whatever you want to do and the goal is set by the participant, which makes it a damn site easier as well. Fifty thousand words is an incredible goal and it is a phenomenal task, but there are pros and cons to that, so the flexibility of goal in Camp can often appeal to those who find the prospect of a full NaNoWriMo a bit daunting. 

Personally, I put myself under a lot of pressure in November and I do stupid things to make sure I have as much time to write as I possibly can, even though I have fallen over myself in recent years to try and finish more and more quickly. Part of me would love to do a dry run now for November of yet another silly challenge for myself, but I'm still residing with my parents due to Coronavirus, and I have work projects that kind of need my attention over the Bank Holiday weekend. (But mainly the parents because my sleeping pattern would be way out of wack, which then interrupts my eating pattern and there are enough issues around mealtimes etc in this house without me starting something for a writing challenge.) 

Camp never feels like the same level of pressure, or at least not to me. I don't know if it's because there are two of them or because they're not the OG competition, but they just don't and that makes life sooo much easier in terms of fitting writing around life. 

Anyway, if you need me, I will be in my bubble. (No, not a social distancing bubble. My writing bubble. AND ONLY I AM ALLOWED IN IT!) 

You Only Write When You're Avoiding Doing Something Else,

 There's this weird, geeky nervous laugh that's not quite a giggle and it is always the nerdy/geeky oddball guy in American high school TV dramas, but in all seriousness, I wrote the title for this blog and that nose happened in my brain completely unprompted. We have the measure of us by now, me, myself, and I, and the truth is I want to avoid doing something, so I thought, ooh, blog. 

Let's see what's happening over there. A few people have liked the tweet I made about rambling to myself (which was actually more of a reference to my Twitter or my real life than the blog, but whatever) so maybe it has had a few people read it whilst I've been ignoring it, and honestly, it was a bit of a confidence booster that it is tied for 3rd on my most-read posts. Then I re-read it and couldn't for the life of me figure out why. It doesn't even really come to a proper ending? (Though endings are what I have always sucked at writing, since junior school and everything...) But hey, there's a saying about gift horses and stuff so should probably listen to that. 

There are two things that I should be doing right now and neither of them is this. 

One is being an adult, reading over some highly dense information, and the cliff notes version of that information prepared by someone a lot more, borrowing a Kingsman phrase here because it's not my favourite movie for nothing, 'well versed in their... shit...' and taking a couple of actions, making some decisions, and probably signing a few things. (Can you get through any part of adulting without signing for something? It is starting to feel like you can't!) It's making my head feel wobbly, so I moved onto the other thing. 

The other is applying for my job. Yep, you read that right. I'm sure that the organisation I work for isn't the only place to do this, but when someone from my unit - not quite my team, but works very closely with my team - went on loan to a different team, I applied to be loaned into their position, because it was doing something different, I would get some different experience and (yeah, there are reasons other than me B.S.ing it was all about development) the person was more senior, so I got a bit of extra money for covering at a higher grade. That person has now moved on permanently, so officially, the job is vacant. The way it works around here is that the next permanent occupant of the job needs to get it through an open competition, so it's my job that I've been doing for six months but as a loan from my previous team. I have to apply to get it and if I do, happy days, and if I don't, I just go back to my old team. Slightly less happy days.

One of the good things about doing the job temporarily is if you can write a decent personal statement, you're fine. There generally isn't an interview for you to have a complete and total meltdown in, but this time around it is open to more people, potentially people already at this grade looking to widen their experience set, and you have to interview. I do not interview well. I tanked my last interview because right in the middle of it I had a panic attack that was so bad I couldn't remember my own name for a few minutes, let alone convince someone I could competently do the job I was applying for, which at the time was my dream job (caveat: for that point in my career). My anxiety is good at convincing me bad things will happen based on little to no evidence, but right now it has a wealth of evidence to point to and say 'THIS WON'T END WELL.' Knowing that, in the best-case scenario, that's where I am heading means that trying to get myself to write an application for 'my job' or any other job as a backup option, rather than get to the end of this process and go straight back to what I was doing before, is nigh on impossible. 

People tell you 'try this', 'try that', 'mindfulness changed my life' and honestly, I want to scream that I know myself well enough by this point that if I'm saying I tried it and it didn't work, trust me, not going to work. It isn't me thinking negatively, it's being aware enough of myself and having dealt with this for so long that I am not going to waste my time on something that is ineffective, here's the important clause in this, for me. 

Writing has always been a catharsis. During the time that I have sat here and scrawled/ semi word vomited this my anxiety level has plummeted from somewhere at the level of planes for all the people definitely not going on holiday currently (anything still in the atmosphere* is an achievement), (*and I didn't have to Google to check that planes fly in the atmosphere...yeah, I did, I'm currently cerebrally struggling for unknown reasons) to something more like helicopter flight path level. And it was a ploy. Giving me something else to focus on for a bit other than the thing that causes me great stress, was a big ploy. Cute dog videos can also work, but only if they can hold my attention. 

Anyway, number two is a bit more urgent, and it's not going to write itself.