Eat Drink and Be Merry, For Thursday is November

That’s right, NaNoWriMo season will soon be upon us and I’ll probably be disappearing from this blog for a month or so.

Not that I’ve been particularly active of late.

To be perfectly honest, I’m dreading this round of NaNo a little bit. I’ve attempted to do National Novel Writing Month (writing 50,000 words in the 30 days of November…that’s 1,667 words a day for those of you keeping track) under all sorts of circumstances. I know from experience that when my life has been particularly difficult I have failed to complete my goal (or even get much past the first 10,000 words). And my life at the moment is not ideal.

The dual monsters of depression and anxiety have been nipping at my heels for quite a while now. Since Ann died a month and a half ago I’ve been much more volatile, easily slipping into dark and/or nervous places with no more than a word or a suggestion to set me off. I’m doing the right things, asking for support from professionals and friends alike, taking time for myself, and trying different things to help me cope like meditation (ok, that’s really the only thing I’ve tried, but hey, at least I’m trying something). It’s just not getting any easier.

As an aside to the fact that I’m very afraid I won’t be able to focus long enough to actually write a book next month, I’m also terrified that I’m the worst person in the world to be around and that I’m driving away everyone in my life by being needy, crazy, erratic, obnoxious, and self-centered. That could very well be my anxiety being an asshole or it could be reality. I’m having some difficulty distinguishing between the two at the moment. But, I digress…back to the NaNo.

I have an idea. It’s a little all consuming at the moment and I’m quite enamored of it, but it’s quite a bit darker than my usual fair. I don’t know what it’s going to sound like, how it’s going to feel to dive deep into this intensely dark story, if I’ll be able to do it justice, or even if I’ll be able to write it at all. I’ve been a little blocked lately. I don’t know if I’m just struggling to put my thoughts together in a coherent manner or if whatever spark that once resided in my brain has extinguished along with the life of my friend. Regardless, it a prospect I’m a little uncomfortable with now that I’m staring down my usual month of writing.

I usually love NaNoWriMo. It’s a mad adventure in my subconscious, listening to my imaginary friends dictate the story their stories, spitting out words as fast as my fingers can type them. I suppose I’m just afraid that the darkness I’m feeling will come out in this book or that it will prevent the book from coming out at all.

Ultimately, I just wanted to explain why I’ve gone MIA…and if I do return during November, please remind me that I should be writing…a novel, not a blog.