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Because I usually am in Vino ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** In 2009, I gave up my studies as a medievalist and musician, left my home, my family, my life and moved to Provence in southern France for a guy. In 2012, I moved away from him to study wine. Today, I'm a vagabond sommelier working in Paris at one of the oldest and most famous restaurants in the world, struggling to find some purpose to what I deem the rest of my life. I'm still married and after 8 10 years, I'm still trying to fit-in with French life and culture and to understand why the French are the way they are. Because they're weird in a different way that I think Americans are weird. Perhaps it's me who's weird. |
| NaNo is actually going well. It's only day two, of course, but when I started this thing I only had a vague idea of the characters, the time, the place, the plot. And it's still kind of vague, but things are starting to come together and form in my mind. I don't like to plan too much when I write... a bad habit from writing too many short stories, and I like to see where the story will take itself, but obviously for a novel, I need to have at least a sort of story direction and some deeper character development, backstory, etc and it's coming into focus. Which is leg up on the last NaNo novel I did in 2018 which was a meandering, nonsensical mess. My goal is 45,000 words over 30 days, which divides to 1500 words a day. A bit less ambitious than the real NaNo, but I wanted a nice round number for my daily goal. I have 3600 words written so far. It gets me excited, it makes me feel like I accomplished something and gets me back into writing. So even if this story ends up being a fiasco, maybe when this is all over and I find myself out of a job (which might be possible) I can start writing seriously again. It has the added benefit of taking my mind off of the depressing situation around me. I don't check CNN or BFM every 30 minutes to see if something has miraculously changed in the world only to get depressed. My French NaNo group are all mostly avoiding talking about the confinement. It comes up on occasion, but I think we'd all prefer a non-confinement discussion space. Earlier today one of my colleagues sent me an email about the days she would need off when the restaurant opened again, because that's one of the things out of a thousand other responsibilities I deal with at my job. The scheduling. One of the days off she requested was the 24th and 25th of April and I sent her a message saying that I'd taken note of her email but there was no way we would be back to work before June. Well, that wasn't the best thing to say because she started freaking out. The French don't handle social distancing too well. They are social people and like to be around others. She said they started talking about when this would all be over on the news and I pointed out that that was probably so people a) respected the confinement because they think it'll be over soon, b) didn't panic and c) kept the suicide rates down. That last one is sad but probably true. If they let us out on the 15th of April - which is when it's supposed to end, I told her we'd all be back in confinement by the 1st of May. In the end I just had to calm her down so she didn't run herself into a wall. She said her roommates have been fighting non-stop and she's sick of it and going stir crazy in her apartment. Which I can understand obviously. Especially if her roommates are fighting. It wasn't the worst freak out ever, but when I crushed her hope that this would be over soon I think she had that moment of panic we all feel eventually. My husband and I talked about it today. We're pretty lucky because we're both independent, fairly solitary people, without kids, who can occupy ourselves for extended lengths of time. But at times it's even hard for us, so I can't imagine how it must be for other people. And the thought of this going on until June (which it probably will) seems like a fun extended vacation at first, but once it begins to sink in, it starts to feel surreal and overwhelming. Also, I only brought winter clothes down here and don't have anything for the summer which means when I finally can go outside I'm going to be very hot. |
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I think it's awesome that you're using that negative experience to get creative. It's hard not to just wallow when those things happen. I use a paper journal for most of my actual coping process too, but I do share bits and pieces on WDC as well.
Might try a short story a day instead. Stay safe. 
