November is NaNoWriMo time. What is that? It stands for National Novel Writing Month, an almost tongue-in-cheek project/competition organized and managed by the whimsically-named “Office of Letters and Light†to encourage writers (and want-to-be writers) to commit words to paper and write those stories they have always wanted to sit down and write “somedayâ€. The goal? To write 50,000 or more words in exactly 30 days (from 12:01am on November 1 to 12:59pm on November 30). The task is very daunting; to stay on track, an average of 1,667 words must be written per day. While that may not sound like a lot, consider that this blog posting is a little more than 550 words…imagine writing about three times as much every single day for 30 days, and you can begin to get a feel for the size of the project.
What is the prize? Apart from some web “badges†and a print-it-yourself certificate, nothing of financial importance (i.e. no cash awards)…but “winners†do have the satisfaction of having finally put those words down, and hopefully the momentum from participating will carry them forward to finish their novels (if they have not already finished by the end of the month). Many participants over the past 10 years of the project have gone on to have their writings published, including some making it onto best-seller lists (for a rundown of this and all the other details, you can visit their website at http://www.nanowrimo.org).
Last year was the first time I participated in NaNo (as some people refer to it), and I had the good fortune to “win†(I finished the month with almost 52,000 words, and added more to it in December). My writing was not a true “novel†or work of fiction; instead, it was a form of autobiography I wrote about a very significant period in my life over 20 years ago, written as a favor for a close friend. The book is still being reviewed and edited, and I do not know when or if it will ever be published.
I have plans to participate this November as well, and hope that I will succeed in reaching the goal. My subject this time was originally going to be a fictional story I have had sketched out for several years, but following Stephen’s death in June (has it really been over four months since the funeral?) it became obvious to me that my original idea was not going to fly this time. Instead, I plan to write Steve’s story. I have little doubt I can eventually come up with more than 50,000 words; after all, I have 16 years of material to work with. The question is whether or not I will be able to write it all down in that short timeframe, which will be even shorter because we have made the decision to travel to Georgia for the first time in several years to visit relatives at Thanksgiving. I suppose I can find some time here and there to write while we are “on the roadâ€, but my best course will probably be to write a little extra each day before and after the trip.
And with that, I will now go off and prepare for NaNoWriMo 2010. I probably will not be able to post anything elaborate here while I am off writing, but I will try to at least put up some brief updates on my progress as we move through the month. Wish me luck!
October has been a busy month of anniversary days and feelings to match.
On the 1st I celebrated my 10th anniversary of working for Hewlett-Packard. Well, sort of. Back in 2000 I left Coca-Cola to accept a job with Bank of America. I was with the Bank for a little over two years, and then they decided to outsource my job to Electronic Data Systems (EDS). EDS was very gracious and rolled over my service time with the Bank. About five and a half years later EDS merged with Hewlett-Packard, and again my service time was rolled over. So, while 2010 technically marks my 10th service anniversary with HP, I have physically worked for them only two years. It seems strange to think that my time keeps getting rolled over from one company to the next…what would have been nice is if back in the beginning Bank of America had counted my time worked with Coca-Cola (about 12-1/2 years); then I would be in my 22nd year with HP instead of my 10th. But, it really would not mean very much in the long run…to recognize my “special day†my manager wished me a happy anniversary and I received a certificate (via e-mail) from the CEO of the company thanking me for my years of work. It felt somewhat underwhelming for the occasion, but given the state of the business world these days I am grateful to have a job.
Last Friday (the 15th) was another sort of anniversary, marking four months having passed since Stephen’s accident. I no longer count the weeks; they are becoming too numerous to keep up with. I will probably stop counting the months as well once the first year or two has passed. It reminds me a lot of when he was born…first we counted his age in days, then weeks, then months until he was about 2, and then we counted years after that. It feels strange that once again I am counting time like this for one of my children; I had not expected anything like that to happen until my children started having their own babies sometime in the far future.
Today is yet a different anniversary – my 48th birthday. It is another year older for me, which I really do not mind at this point in my life, but it is also another “first†because Stephen is not here. I am sure my wife and younger son will do something special this evening to celebrate and my friends will offer their best wishes throughout the day, all of which I greatly appreciate, but I am certain I will still feel somewhat empty inside because Steve isn’t here.
Underwhelmed, strange, and empty – all negative feelings, even for the days that should have been positive. I do not know what significance, if any, could be tied to that. Any thoughts?
I recently made an unscheduled trip to Georgia (the first trip in several years for any of us) to visit my oldest brother, who was in the hospital after collapsing in his bathroom a couple of nights before and seemed to be doing very poorly. I went alone; my son is in school, and my wife stayed behind with him. It was an interesting trip for many reasons, but most of all it was interesting because of the way my relatives acted toward me while I was there. No, there was nothing bad about it; quite to the contrary, it was the most pleasant and accommodating visit I have had since moving my family to Texas ten years ago.
I felt like royalty – my mother tended to the bedroom and bathroom I used in her house like I was staying in a five-star hotel; my oldest niece took me out to lunch the day I arrived; and both my mother and my sisters-in-law cooked delicious dinners each night I was there, including a big steak dinner the night before I went home. I got to visit with almost all of my family at one point or another, missing only my youngest brother’s wife and his oldest daughter. Each and every one of them seemed overjoyed that I had come to visit, and one niece in particular kept pushing the question, “When are you going to move back to Georgia?â€
When I finally left to begin the 14-hour drive back to Texas, I had many things to think about. The most pervasive thought was over whether to start visiting Georgia more often. Moving there permanently is out of the question; with our son Stephen buried here in Texas, my wife and I have decided that when our time comes we will be buried next to him. But, there is nothing to say we cannot visit relatives more often. The first opportunity for us to do that would likely be at Thanksgiving; school is out for that entire week, and getting time off from work should not be an issue either. My mother has already offered her spare bedrooms for us to use; all we have to do is get there.
Therein lies the issue. How should we travel – by air or by road? Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Flying is much faster, but is more expensive than driving…and we would still need some form of ground transportation after we arrive in Georgia, which means renting a car. Driving is less expensive and gives us a means of transportation when we arrive, but the trip is quite long (as I mentioned earlier, it is about 14 hours each way). My wife prefers flying, but when we look at our budget it quickly becomes clear that driving is the more affordable choice.
And with that, the discussions continue. What will we finally decide? When I find out, I will be sure to let you all know!
(Postscript: My brother had a very large bleeding ulcer in his intestine that was causing him to pass a lot of blood, lowering his blood count and making him weak. He is now out of the hospital and resting at home.)
Had my father lived, and had my parents stayed married, they would have celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary this week. But, sadly, neither of those events occurred. My parents made it about 18-1/2 years as a couple; their divorce became final about a month before I graduated from high school in 1980. Dad lived only eight more years after that, dying from cancer at the age of 57.
I don’t know the exact description used back then for the grounds of the divorce; these days, it would probably be called “irreconcilable differences” because they truly had a conflict between them that tore their marriage apart. I don’t know all the details, and I don’t want to know them; what I do know is my mother filed the papers and my father didn’t contest it, hoping she would change her mind and want to work out their differences…but it didn’t happen. He kept on hoping she would take him back for the better part of seven years. Finally he met another woman who he eventually married, and she cared for him as he became more ill in the months before his death.
I used to think that their divorce did not affect me very much; after all, I left home for college a few months later. Now, I’m not so sure.
I’ve been married for a little over 17 years, having celebrated an anniversary just last month. By all appearances, my marriage is on track to last much longer than my parents’ time together. Like my parents, my wife and I have had our differences, but so far there is nothing we haven’t been able to work out. Not too long ago, I was asked by a more-recently-married man what our “secret” was. “Just keep talking,” I told him. “Don’t clam up and walk away and hope things will fix themselves, because they won’t.” When I thought about it later, I realized that I had learned that lesson by watching my parents. Whenever he didn’t like what Mom was saying to him, Dad would simply close his mouth and walk out of the room; if he had stayed and kept talking, I believe he and Mom would have been better able to work out their differences. Who knows? Maybe they would have stayed married a few years longer, perhaps until he passed away.
I wonder how many other lessons I learned from my parents without realizing it?
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