Help! I’m drowning… well, not really. But I am feeling kind of schizophrenic – as a writer, that is. On impulse, I signed up for the write-a-novel-in-the-month-of-November challenge without planning to. I had no delightful ideas of what to write, no burning desire to even write a novel. That was so 20 years ago. And yet… something moved me to try.

The only idea I had was to fictionalize some of my own life experiences, focusing in on my two-year marriage to a very troubled man. I begin the story just after my marriage has ended and I begin seeing a therapist to help me come to terms with everything so I can get on with my life. During the session, I look back over my life; the marriage and what led up to it, as well as some aspects of my childhood and early family life. My intent is to weave those threads together into a tapestry of me, my life, now.

I am still chipping away at writing this story, working title “The First Half” though it’s doubtful I’ll have 50,000 written by November 30^th. My biggest challenge is the lack of that magical combination of creativity+time. My only free time is in the evening and I’m usually tired from 10.5 hours of commuting and working my office job. As a distraction, I’m doing a wee bit of other types of writing – the weekly Themed Writing Contest on LinkedIn. My blog posts. And copywriting at work, for a charitable ministry and for other people.

I visit Twitter throughout the day, just for a mental break. I like its short tweets that often contain links to longer articles, blog posts and websites. I ended up on this one the other day, and wanted to share with my fellow bloggers and writers. James Clear has some great information on nutrition, brain health, lifestyle and self improvement activities, and more. Check him out!

http://jamesclear.com/writer-challenge-2013

OK back to work…