starting anew

It's Monday again finally. Moms who write and have kids in school love Mondays from September to June.

Let me qualify that. Moms who write and have kids in school and who have flexible enough jobs so that they can squeeze uninterrupted time with their projects love Mondays from September to June. The clock is always reset on Mondays. Unless your kids are sick. Over the weekend, mine has developed something of a phlegmy chest and the shadowy tint of under-eye circles. I hope the ten hours of sleep he's finishing up right now will be enough for me to feel good about pushing him out the door, backpack heavily clunking against his back, when the 7:15 school bus comes 'round the bend.

I haven't begun my new project in earnest yet--but I'm tackling this one differently than I did SOL. I'm heeding the advice of Ansen Dibell (who, I was shocked to find out, was a woman!) and paying close attention to the elements of plot before I even begin.

I've decided to harness the momentum that was byproduct of sprinting to the finish line with SOL and conduct a little experiment. If I can write 100 words in a month, why not 200? If I can finish a first draft in a month, why not an entire manuscript?

You guessed it, I'm signed up for NaNoWriMo with the handle gemini7 (if you want to look me up).

Besides the madcap adventure of writing forward really fast without revising, pondering and deleting, I'm putting this project in the way of temptation to revisit SOL without having let my mind and psyche rest. I have several readers poring over the manuscript, readers whose smart insights I trust (I'm so lucky!), and until they're done, and I've paused sufficiently enough to be able to absorb critique, I need to busy myself with something completely different. Thus, the novel in 30 days challenge.

NaNoWriMo doesn't begin for another couple of weeks (actually, there's only one more Monday between now and the beginning of November), so I'm doing my warm-ups, taking notes, and plotting my course. Anticipating the fun of beginning anew is a huge part of this--which also has a lot to do with why I love Mondays from September to June. I sure do hope my kid is well enough to go to school--I have a lot to do today!