Happy Halloween

 I still can't believe the snow. I'm glad the kids in our area trick or treated on Friday.
Last weekend was filled with planting bulbs. This weekend I was dashing about outside with my son digging up and bringing inside his tropical and desert plants. The kitchen and garage are now greenly stuffed.

     NaNoWriMo is whispering to me. But I need to be strong and tell it, "Not this year dear, I have a headache." The trouble with NaNo is, it turns November into a marathon of researching and writing. And when December first strikes I'm exhausted and my house is a mess. And instead of feeling any sort of festiveness, I feel the holidays ever encroaching like a dark beast waiting around the corner.  My slow motion get away attempts only leading to the inevitable basement scene. Or is that not where characters tend to meet their demise?
   This year I'd like to not start out already behind. I want to feel Thanksgiving, not manage it around my word count for the day. I want to hum Christmas carols and think of putting up lights as joyful, not as another chore on a long list of things to do. I wonder if that's possible.

    It would be great though to work on some story ideas I have, to develop Dark Park/ Stone Song, Wisteria Manor,  Hidden Candles, Whale and Penguin, or Shield of Innocence, into full fledged outlines. It would be great to turn an idea into a story. I like listing the titles, it kindles within, I like knowing they are there waiting, that maybe they can become something. And there is no push forward like NaNoWriMo.

    However I still haven't been able to take what I have done for past NaNos and turn them into finished stories. I just finished my read through of Echo today (took me 6 months, because I didn't read it during the summer). And though I littered the margins with notes to myself I haven't actually done the work of improving it yet. And the attempt will be a long and confusing process. I will need to do a lot more reading about editing, and a lot of careful reading of the works of others to help me learn.

    Come spring do I want four stories in rough draft form or do I want to have two stories in rough draft and one story done, fully finished. Of course the answer would be to have one story completely done. But the thing is, that I don't know how to do that, so three months, six months, a year or two more, who knows how long that could take me (forever..never?). The rough draft thing, I know that when I set it as a priority over everything else in my life that I can accomplish one of those in a month. And that does bring me a sense of accomplishment, even though I am not sure if I am truly moving forward.

    The final element in my decision making process, is the one that annoys me the most. These past two weeks I've had trouble with dizziness. Reading and work such as writing, painting, and sculpting usually make it worse. I've abandoned a painting, and a sculpture project for the time being. God I miss dancing around in the mornings while I brush my teeth. I never realized what a bouncy person I am. Oh to do a little hip dip, a bit of sway, to rock my head back and forth, to bound up the stairs singing, and not feel like the world was moving twice as fast in the opposite direction, to not incur the wrath of nausea at the slightest provocation.

    Strangely I've still been able to do yard work and wash dishes and the like. Sometimes I feel plenty bad afterward. But I'm pleased that I've been able to do my regular stuff by making some adjustments, like not moving my head much (keeping my face facing the same way as my body), not moving side ways, moving slowly, etc. I haven't been exercising though. Walking can quickly turn into a bad experience. Whether it be in the kitchen or outside, if the dizzy stuff strikes it feels like I am moving over an undulating landscape. But maybe I shouldn't even bother considering this in my decision, hopefully this will stay in October. Like I said I've been doing better. Better enough to convince myself today not to think of writing on the computer as a risky thing to do. Oh and I've decided that I have good balance since I haven't fallen, so that is something, not as good as not being dizzy, but some kind of consolation.

  I think I've convinced myself not to do NaNo though I do feel the pull, and I will certainly visit their website tomorrow. But more importantly I've whined a bit about being dizzy, which might seem a bad thing, but usually when I complain about a thing like that here, it goes away.