Perpetual Ruminations

Wednesday

I've been thinking about it for a while now, and I decided to give it a try. I'm going to do the Nano this month. I first seen this last year and thought about then, some. I even joined a site called 750 Words, to practice writing everyday. That went pretty well, but then the bottom fell out of everything.

Winter was trying, having to fill in for so many shifts, then spring came and with it, double coverage. But even as I hired an extra person, we lost one, then another and another. In fact, I lost all the old employees within a relatively short time, it's like the first one quit and then the rest kind of followed.

Of course, this wasn't a great loss. Two of them should have been fired, but letting them quit was a better option from the companies interests. One was a legitimate reason, health issues, and he was a pretty good worker. Even so, he was pushing and trying to see if I would confront him on his actions. Even so, I hope he is recovering and doing well.

The last worker to go is another who could do the job fine, but refused to. He was addressed a few times on a few issues, but in the end, he ensured he would be terminated. I had talked to him about the issues and tried my best to get him to understand, he was on thin ice and needed to shape up. In the end, he agreed with me and voluntarily shipped out before getting booted out.

But I digress. The topic today is Nano and I'm going to give it a try. I thought about it last year, but was uncertain. I put it off till this year, thinking I would be much more prepared. My digression was to give insight why I'm not more prepared, with everyone gone and great difficulty in replacing them, I ended up working various shifts, and most everyday. By the end of April, it was seven days a week, and with my supervisory duties that take place outside of the job site, I put in a good fifty or more hours a week, often closer to sixty plus.

That left little time for anything, and no energy for what little time I did have. That in turn meant I had to try and get to the most important matters, and to try and spread myself around the little time I had. So in short, I didn't accomplish squat all summer.

Now, I have a full crew again, and am finding myself with a couple of days off each week. I have time again, and I feel I am beginning to feel rested up and able to do things again. I suppose I was becoming close to physically burning out. Between work, stress, and little sleep, I could have even had a complete breakdown. It's been a long time getting back to where I was when it all fell apart, but then, it was kind of draining me all last winter with one thing right after the other.

So, I see and read a lot about Nano, and of course it spikes my interest, but I have not done anything to prepare, and have actually not done much for writing anything. I have a few ideas I got down to work on, but that's it. I did get a poem out, but I have not written much of anything for a long time. Let's just put it this way, my written items are far and few between.

So of course when I started seeing the Nano stuff, I thought hey, I should do that. Then I would think a little bit about how things have been, how unprepared I am, and think, "I'll try it next year." But, seriously, will I be any better prepared by then? Probably not. I have to be honest, and until I do this, I won't be prepared, I don't know what to even prepare for.

So, like so many things in my life, I'm going in blind and unprepared to see what it's all about. Kind of like swimming, I could wade in a little bit and test the water. I could research the lake, watch it for a while, talk to others, and even wade out a little further each time, but sooner or later, it comes down to taking the plunge and just jumping in and swimming.

So jump in and see what it's all about. I will read up on this Nano thing, I'll look over comments and posts, and learn what I can about it, but I have done a lot of this already, a year ago.

I'll gain an understanding of what I need to do, then, without any idea yet of what I will write about, I'll jump in and start. If nothing serious comes up to prevent me finishing, in thirty days I'll have a novel written.

I'm not fooling myself into thinking it will be anything good, or something I can put on the shelf. No, not without preparing characters, plots, and settings. These are things I need to map out and keep up on as the story and the plot progress. I will not have time for all of this while I write over the month, and I have not set anything up beforehand. No, this will not be a complete novel, and I doubt I will even have chapters set up.

That could all come in an editing phase after, but if it does or if it does not, that is not my goal. My goal is simple, find a subject for a story and write on it. I want to start with just an idea, and then follow it for a month and write at least 50,000 words on it, just to prove to myself I can do it.

Then, once I have done this, I will know I can do so much more without the deadline. Who knows, I may even find that this gives me the story and after I have it down, I can go through it and polish it into a set of chapters, fixing things along the way.

For now, it's just writing a story of that length, and sticking to it every day. I need to do this after the summer I had. Did I say summer? No, it's more than the summer, it's the whole last year, since I changed my career and took this job as a security guard. Even more, it's proving I can do all three, be a part time security guard, think about thirty hours a week, being the site supervisor -- our corporate office is about two hundred miles away, and being a writer.

I need this.