It's Camp NaNo and Everything I Am Writing Is Boring,

 It wasn't such a long time ago that I was really excited about the idea of being back to writing. I was enjoying feeling like myself again, or something that felt like myself, because since I was very young, writing has been my thing and it's been the thing that got me through some of the worst moments of my life, even though it has brought me to some of the worst moments, too. (Losing novels never seems to get any easier.) Unfortunately the 'it's all going so well' thing didn't last as long as I wanted it to, and now I'm at the stage where I feel like everything that I am writing is boring, or total trash and instead of feeling great the last few days, it's felt like a bit of a slog and it's felt as though that slog is not worth it. 

I felt the need to take a short break from the draft of the novel that I wrote - technically it's a novella at the moment but the intention is for it to become a novel by the time I am done with it - because I really needed to have some space from it, for one thing, and for another, much like with Fairies, I felt the need to let it breath for a bit before I start trying to continue drafting it and aim at getting draft number two done. Part of it is that I really think that I need to step away from the novel to make sure that when I re-read it, the characters are who I was thinking of, the story comes together the way it was meant to and that I have the time to think about it, and also not think about it, because re-reading over it before redrafting is definitely better when you don't remember every single bit of the plot line. I think it's also a bit of a hangover from having to redo Fairies not long after it was published because there was a word missing on the first page. 

The problem with taking a break from that novel is every new idea I have had sucks. It sucks f**king hard, and when I'm sat there thinking, oh my God, I'm bored writing this it does make me question what it is the point of continuing working on that. I think sometimes I continue with it because I'm trying to keep up with the 4 the words quests and monsters, because it does help to keep me motivated, but I'm questioning right now if that is healthy. Maybe what I really needed was to take a step back from writing when I finished the draft, and take a week or so thinking about writing - so logging onto 4 the words and telling it that I'm thinking about writing, even if I'm not actively doing any - without actually writing, and then come back to do the first redraft. One of the reasons I don't want to do that, or that I can't really do that, is because it's Camp NaNo and I had committed myself to trying to write, on average, a thousand words a day. I am terrible at Camp NaNo and always have been, so the fact that I'm not managing to stick to that is no real surprise. I haven't actually managed to keep track of what I am doing or have been doing so I haven't kept the NaNo site up to date, and I'm just trying not to stress about that. I think the other reason I don't want to do the fully stepping back thing is that I took so long 'off' of writing from not having a proper, working laptop, so I think I would feel really guilty if I didn't keep writing. Even if everything that I'm writing is crap. 

We're Back Online,

 Yesterday was the start of something that felt good for the first time in a while and that was sitting somewhere - although I was sitting in my bed and that's not the best thing, from experience - and writing something, even if it wasn't working on the novels that I want to write, and will hopefully one day finish. 

I wish that I could say that it was as simple as now the laptop has arrived I have sat all day and powered through a few thousand words to battle the monster of 4TheWords and have been able to write something more of one of the things which has been buzzing around my head, but alas, my birthday and Mothering Sunday appear to have coincided this year, so I felt the need to see my mother and my dad's mother, since next weekend I will be away from home and occupied. I wish I was doing something like I did for my twenty first birthday - flying away to Budapest for a city break - or my twenty fifth birthday - getting the train to Paris and having my first birthday ever in the snow, spending a rainy day eating madeleines, drinking fresh orange juice and reading the rest of Ready Player One - but this one is going to be a little different, partly because I will still be in the UK, but for other reasons as well. 

What has happened is I have found the excitement to come home and write again, and the ability to just open the laptop and get straight on with it is something which really helps with that. I'm able to just get straight on with whatever, and even though that does help me to get distracted, too - research, who is that person I'm thinking of, what am I naming this character, no I don't like that, why is my brain so itchy right now - it helps me spend my limited ability to focus on the right things, like writing this blog and getting back onto 4TheWords to write something, anything and just about everything. Somehow it seems to have helped my brain feel a little bit less loud and that will always be welcome. 

Anyway, I'm going to get back to it.

It Takes Me a While to Be Impulsive,

It's been about four months since four keys died on my Pixelbook and I have been honestly struggling to cope with my other laptop so much that I tend to avoid doing anything on the laptop and only use it as a last resort for when my phone really won't cut the mustard or I don't want to use my work laptop in my off time for researching things, and honestly, I came to the conclusion that I was upsetting myself and affecting my mental health for no good reason. It might sound stupid, but when one of the things that you identify yourself as is a writer - you know the whole writer, dreamer, fairies believer, I'm a general cloud head and a Scout leader... - it's really hard to admit that actually, I can't be one of those things at the moment because it feels like there is something physically blocking me from being it. My crap laptop (otherwise known as the Craptop because it's me and everything has to have a name, even if it's stupid) is the one that swallowed an entire novel a couple of years ago (when I say a couple of years ago, I'm doing that old person thing of I don't mean two years ago, I mean about five years ago) and I've never truly forgiven it, and I've never really gotten over it. 

Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my more techy friends who told me, in far more polite terms that were a bit beyond my technical knowledge, the Pixelbook is fxxxed and whilst I knew that changing laptops was one of the last things I wanted to do because I hate change, I also knew that trying to struggle along on the Craptop wasn't doing any good and that as much as I could use Pixie with an external keyboard or something, it's not the same and the reason I bought it in the first place was because I needed a portal computer, and a Chromebook worked well because it was zippy and light and everything I wanted it to be when I was away from my tower PC. The problem over the last six months has also been that my office (at home, but home office means something different to me) just doesn't work for me to be using the PC. 

All of that is the reasoning that added up to me doing something somewhat crazy and impulsive and that was, I bought myself a new laptop. And it's a Mac. 

Yes, I realise saying that I don't like change and then switching operating systems like that is stupid and I have been utterly baffled and confused since finishing the set up because everything feels weird and new and different, but holy heckery, it's beautiful and it's fast and it's light and I love it. Yes, there is a learning curve to using it, and there is one thing about it which I don't love like I loved Pixie for, but it is the single most ridiculous complaint I could come up with and that is that the power plug only goes into one side and when I'm plugging it in to charge in my room, ideally I would have preferred the power cable on the other side, but it's also on the side which I think is the most common for power cables to be on. 

It's already making a difference, too, because sitting here and writing this has felt the most comfortable I have felt in months (when it comes to writing) so even though I will probably take a lot more time to get over the fact I can't just Control + A to select everything, and the fact that the buttons to close the window are on the wrong side, and the fact that this laptop isn't touch screen (that actually makes me happy because I hate touching the touch screen and forever having fingerprints up my screen) I am really thrilled that my new laptop is here, and it's working and it's relieved a level of stress that I didn't even realise that I was feeling. 

Hopefully this is the change I have been needing!

Functionally Stunted,

It seems like so long ago I was writing about being fictionally stunted and it would be lovely to be able to write that since then I have been able to regain my composure and start writing properly again, but the truth of it is that I have taken the longest break from writing after NaNoWriMo since probably 2009, and honestly, I can only think that it is a good thing. Unlike that sentence which has the word writing in it far too many times...

I know it doesn't sound like a good thing, but nothing has felt like such a slog as NaNoWriMo last year. It was somewhat painful to get through and I have never been so glad that it was over as I was last year. Today something that once wasn't strange happened. I was walking around my kitchen putting some things away after just getting home and I was humming to myself, and it turned into something from a novel I was once working on. By the time I got myself together to write it down, half of it was already gone, but that is usual right now. It's unusual that I've actually felt the buzz of something creative. I've tried a few times, and I've had a couple of good days, but not many. 

Part of the problem has been the loss of my good laptop. It's still not working properly and it's a problem with keys that I can't do without. My 'backup' is a slow-running grump of a thing and it doesn't help me with writing at all; it never has. For multiple reasons I also can't make myself get along with my PC or anything like external keyboards and the like to be able to use the good laptop.

One of the other reasons, or one of the ones I'm happy to share, is the fact that the last few months have been BUSY. I've managed to juggle work and Scouts and writing before, but this was different, partly because of how November fell, the efforts of being an ML in a region that was so far away, being able to drive (and feeling the need to drive and do things) plus having a whole additional section who were my responsbility instead of being able to check out slightly and know that someone else was able to cover for the fact I was mentally barely there. Honestly, the last few months I have needed to take the time away from something that has previously been my catharsis, because it was more stress than a stress relief, and I needed to accept I needed to focus on other things. 

I'm hoping to be able to come back to it now, but I'm not going to try and pressure myself to do it, because I know for a fact that one of the problems recently has been trying to stretch myself far too thin, and unfortunately, writing is the thing that is going to need to drop. 

Fictionally Stunted,

 Okay, so it's true to say that my head is not in the fiction right now because there are two things coming up which are stealing my attention. 

This weekend is the first All Night Lock In in person even since 2019 and it's a lot to organise and a lot to do. The following weekend I have the last camp of the year with my Explorer Scouts (teenagers) and I want to make sure it's really special, because whilst we have done a lot this year, or even in the last six months, I love the idea of making this one special. I know it's going to be a tough one, because any cold camp is tough, but they are also amazing. It has happened before that it has snowed when the winter camp has been on at the site we are going to, so I'm kind of hoping that happens. It would be cool to be able to have a snowball fight... 

I wonder though if it is partly because I started this month trying to replace a novel that my laptop ate that I had loved and unfortunately, it was just another failed attempt to revive it. It wasn't going well, partly because I couldn't remember how one of the characters gets from where she is to somewhere else where she meets one of the other characters. Honestly, it went straight out of my head. Actually, that makes it sound like I've known recently, but I lost that novel about five years ago I think, and even when it first happened I couldn't remember that particular bit of the story - maybe that's because it sucked - so it's been gone for a while. 

I have a lot of other ideas of things I would like to write or things I need to re-write because I abandoned them in a huff, but trying to get myself to sit down and focus on one has been testing and I don't know whether the best thing would be to figure out which one is annoying me the most and work on that one. 

Anyway, if nothing else, I decided on a new phrase for writer's block and that is Fictionally Stunted. 

NaNoWriMo Might Be a Thing, But This Year Is Different,

 So something weird happened this year and I don't know how to explain it. NaNoWriMo is still important to me, so don't think of this as me bowing out disgracefully, but this year has been a bit, I don't really have the words for it to be perfectly honest. 

I knew from early on that this year was not going to be a competitive year because for one thing the way that the calendar fell was completely pants for the idea of super competitive, person best record setting days early in the month. Having a ten or twenty thousand word day relies upon a couple of things, one of those things is freedom from the responsibilities of work and everything else. Scouts would have had to take a backseat, and so would work, and that just wasn't possible. I am a civil servant which normally means I get a lot of leave to use throughout the year, but I've been camping a lot this year so I've been using days to go to site early and also to spend Mondays recovering from the lack of sleep and running around after numerous young people. I didn't have enough days to take the full week, or even the four first days of NaNoWriMo off, and still have leave for other plans until the leave year renews. I couldn't just skip out on one of my Scout nights because there was no one to cover for me. 

Although I didn't expect it to be a competitive (with myself) kind of year, I didn't expect the slog that it has been. Next weekend is ANLI, and with the move that I made a few years ago now that means driving down to London and back over the course of the weekend, which will take out a lot of writing time for the travel, so I was hoping to have finished this weekend and honestly, I'm not even close. I struggle to find time to write on days I'm writing. In previous years I have squeezed in some time during lunchtimes, but work is busy at the moment, it's draining and honestly, even when I can log out of one laptop and into the other to write, well, I sit and stare at the screen and think, what do I even want to write? What do I want to say? I don't want to write a load of old poo, but I don't feel invested in what I'm writing at the moment. I committed to re-writing the novel I lost a few years ago, but I just wasn't feeling it. I remember the feeling I had back when I wrote Fairies and that electric buzz that ran through my body when I finally decided what I wanted to write and fell instantly in love with it. That hasn't happened this year. I've been waiting for it to happen, but it just hasn't. 

In some ways, that is not surprising either. I've been really struggling mentally the last few months and that is partly because the world is a hell of a lot right now, like it is for everyone, but also because I take on too much. One of the reasons I do it is because I want to be involved in things that make the world even a little bit better of a place, and another is because I'm trying to distract myself from how horrible the world can be. When you head is so full of everything else, it's hard to give yourself the place to be creative. It's hard to focus on something and it's hard to emotionally commit to something else, because it's very easy to feel completely rung out.

In previous years I've done all sorts of things to get the words done, and it's been things like emailing myself when I've been commuting, or writing on my phone whilst I'm on the loo, in the bath, before going to sleep, or using speech to type whilst doing something like cooking. I've batch cooked food before November started so I can throw something into the microwave or eat it cold and keep typing one handed, or type between bites. This year, that did not happen. 

I will still finish the fifty thousand words and I have still loved NaNoWriMo as a way to refocus my attention of writing and remind me that when I kick myself into it, I can do things I think are impossible, however it's also reminded me that sometimes the things we love we do need a rest from. 

My plan for next year, when I will be very old, very grey and possibly even less able to function on little to no sleep, is to make sure I have enough leave left to take at least the first weekend of November off, and let the keys fall as they may. I am hoping to give myself the headspace to do something wonderful, even if it is just another of these stories that I write for myself and is for my eyes only, and hopefully go back to the point where other people look at me and think I'm slightly mad. Until then, I have words to finish. 

Mate, Fuming Wasn't Even the Word,

 I have a couple of little detours before I actually get to the start of this particular blog, but I think they're worth it. First, is it just me or did I suddenly get a bit more Northern? Has it happened slowly since I came back up here? I'm not sure, but occasionally I catch myself and think, yeah, this is a thing that happened whilst I wasn't looking. The second thing is that I have a terrible joke. I used it for the first time when I volunteering at the women's football Euros tournament and honestly, I think it takes too much explaining to actually be funny, but I still love it. One of the proper Northern things I've started doing is saying, mate, I'm fuming, A LOT. I don't get p*ssed off anymore, I'm just fuming. All the time. That's how I term it. Anyway, my daft joke is, if I were French I'd be smoking. Because the French word for smoking is Fumeur, so it makes me think of fuming. I did warn you it was terrible.

Anyway, writing that last blog post was feeling like a victory and I went to copy and paste it from 4thewords (there is no better accountability partner for writing in my eyes) and I pressed something stupid and it disappeared. I'm there clicking back, undo, and all sorts, and the damn thing is not coming back and I thought sh*t, really, again? 

Sidenote/ third random tangent, I've tried, for the most part, not to swear in this blog before because it's not like it's age-restricted or anything like that, but at the moment I'm focusing on just writing. I am still ****ing letters so it's not the full thing spelled out, but at the moment, the most important thing is getting on with the writing side because of how long I spent not writing and how much that has an impact on me. 

If you've been reading the blog for a while you'll know that loss of words is a thing that has happened to me before, during NaNoWriMo, outside of NaNo and honestly, it seems like I never learn, but I do learn, because the next time I lose something, it's in a different way. I learn a lot from it, but something else goes wrong the next time and there are the same results. Every time it happens it's frustrating because I'm not often a person who writes with a plan, so when it's gone, it's gone, and it's not like I can just look through my notes and recreate whatever was there. It would be particularly difficult because, as you can see from this blog, my mind wanders off at will, and sometimes the things which "trigger" a wander at one point won't do the same again, or if I think too hard about a word, it's like something is blocking it. I've been describing it recently as my brain handing my crossword clues, I'll be having a conversation with someone, half think of something and not be able to "get there" to the point of finding the word, and be saying things like 'it starts with a B', 'it sounds like Heffalump - it very rarely sounds like the thing I think it sounds like, but my brain has inextricably (and sometimes inexplicably) linked the two things together - 'that place I lived in London' (I lived in many places in London, and this doesn't narrow down was it a town, a street, a house, a flat...) Thankfully, I spend quite a bit of time with my mum, so when this particular brand of cerebral paralysis strikes, I say these clues to my mother and she reminds me of the word after not too much unpleasant mental gymnastics with me trying to fiddle my way through knotted neurons and navigate a new pathway to what I'm trying to say. Granted, even when she reminds me what it is, I'm relieved, but also vexed, because this little phenomenon is pretty new, and I don't like it.

I think it's because I've been struggling to write for a while or to find the words to express what I'm thinking, losing blog posts can feel less emotionally charged than losing a novel draft, but it also feels quite silencing, even if it's not that someone has intentionally done something to make it disappear. It's more vexing than devastating. I was annoyed and I wanted to throw something, though that might also be that I have some pent-up energy and frustration that I once channeled into running, the desire to run has eluded me for a while now. Though as writing has also been a struggle and I've been finding a few other things difficult, I wonder if it's just been a general mental struggle and I'm only just starting to process that, which is challenging because one of the reasons I write is for the benefit of my mental health and one of the reasons I run is exactly the same. Anyway, the blog survived, I'm surviving and in the background of it all I have actually started work on a new project which is humming away to itself and the cogs of the idea machine are whirring again, instead of just grinding and spluttering and refusing to pop anything out at all (which means that the ability to come up with anything of merit or anything interesting is literally nil.)

Before I know what is happening, the next few months of business will be over and it'll be NaNoWriMo kind of business, and I may or may not be looking again at breaking my own records, writing too many words in too short a space of time, sharing my love of writing with my Scout-y youngsters and also be driving down to London at least once, because I prefer my car to a train, and I much prefer being able to just get in and get going, as opposed to the bus, walk, train, change, walk, stairs, tube, change, walk, etc that the journey is every time I visit London without having my car with me. Hopefully, this year won't mean any lost words and may mean writing something else I actually want to commit to editing. It's been twelve years (well, it will have been by the end of November) since I wrote Fairies and I struggle getting my head around the fact that I haven't written anything else I liked that much since. Oh to be seventeen again and not overthink what the world may think of the thing which I am putting out for them all to see.