Somewhere in my very early twenties, I stopped writing creatively. I stopped for over 15 years. I’d written some pretty decent things, won some recognition, but I just felt like everything I wrote was so dark. I vowed to stop until I could write the nice happy things that normal people do. It took me many years to realize that a) I’m not normal, b) that’s okay, and c) dark has millions of shades in it. Once your eyes adjust, there’s a lot to see.

So I’ve tried to embrace the dark, and it’s comfortable for me. But still, I would like everything I write to somehow involve hope and redemption. Redemption is hard to believe in, sometimes. Hope is easy though. Almost always easy. It’s the lightest shade of dark, and it’s also sometimes funny as hell. At least I think so. But then, I laughed at Pulp Fiction, so you decide for yourself.

Anyway, I’m trying to reconcile the fact that you can’t tell your truth, especially family truth, without hurting someone’s feelings. Or can you? Or is that how fiction started in the first place? Aha, the myths you say?, yes… Yesssss! This makes sense! I can show the insanity without incriminating the insane! Muahahahahahaha. Yeah, I know. Crazy rubs off on me though – you get used to it.

So NaNoWriMo is coming up fast. National Novel Writing Month. The deal is you write a rough, I mean it – rough, draft of a novel all in one month. November to be exact about it. Last year I had to quit because I’d been typing on my couch and my hands literally went numb in week 2, and I had a job writing stuff, and they paid me, so they won. I think I was already fairly far behind anyway. I learned that I needed a better plan. I’m not a story-all-planned out kind of writer, more of the archeologist approach, but some planning would have really helped me not get all bungled up in stupid stuff, which I very clearly did.

Ah but this year… This year I have an office to work in, now I need a plan. And a new book. Last year’s will take awhile to figure out, and I don’t want to try to force it just yet. So something new, and dark, that works with telling the truth. Something with hope and redemption, that doesn’t hurt feelings… Lots to think about. I don’t know if I’ll finish, but getting started is, well, you know. A good start.