For the month of November I’ve been absent from the blog… First, apologies to everyone who was expecting my posts.

Shortly before November 1 (maybe Oct 25? Oct 27?) I learned about National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo and decided to go for it. I wasn’t quite sure why or how or what I was going to write, but I knew that something about it was right for me, right now.

Enter the month of November, a month where I just also happened to be: the maid of honor in one of my best friend’s weddings; moving from my condo into a townhouse; finishing up an 8 week course; and working with my clients as well as traveling out of state (a 9 hour drive!) for Thanksgiving. What was I thinking?

I knew that the month would fly, and fly it did.

The beginning to my (first-draft) novel reads:

“728, Sureny

She knew she could never go back. Lliana glanced to the right and to the left and stepped out the door and onto the soft moss.  She had remembered her boots and her cape. Her bag held dried fruit, nuts, and several other items that would help her on her journey.  Lliana looked back at her father’s hut one last time, grabbed her horse, and took off. 

She did not know where she was headed, she only knew that it must be far–far from the village, far from the people, far from her father. Her father. She would miss his rambling and his care, but she could not risk his safety. And so she fled. “

What I learned as I wrote, was that I didn’t have to make anything up: the story revealed itself to me as I listened. All my job involved was listening and writing down the story that I heard. What a relief! I didn’t have to “be creative” and all the baggage that entailed. I could listen and gather stories–which I’ve already talked about extensively here.

The thing is, though, that in order to honor the story I was listening to, I had to devote all my attention to it, and so I haven’t written here while I was writing the novel. Tonight, at 9:32, I validated my novel on the NaNoWriMo site: goal accomplished, it’s now time for me to finish the tale, return to the blog, and edit the crap out of the rough draft manuscript I now have (did you know, that 50,000 words is roughly 250 pages!?).

So, I shall be back!

A short shout out, before I sign off: Thank you to all the people I know who are  the artists, the actors, the musicians, the singers, the writers. Thank you to my many friends who shared with me about their own books or projects; you honor me by sharing your work, and I am forever indebted to your example. Thank you to my parents, my teachers, my brother (best reader/cheerleader ever), my client (who screamed and jumped up and down when she saw I finished), my healers.

Finally, some pictures, because, well, I wanna celebrate!