Write, write write

Last year, a cousin of mine posted on Facebook about something titled NaNoWriMo. While the title annoyed me, I found the concept intriguing. A visit to NaNoWriMo.org revealed a look into a frantic rush of an author - a race to write an entire novel in one month. NaNoWriMo stood for National Novel Writing Month.

Here's a little background on elementary grade Jenners:
I won an award in 1st grade for the most books read.
When at home, I would read.
My favorite places to be were the library, in the bath with a book, or up a tree with a book.

in 4th-5th grade, I wrote books for fun. I bound them with yarn. They were only about 20 pages long, but I still find it impressive that a 10 year old would write books. Most were a series based off my dog and cat, Super Kitty and Skunk Dog.. basically children's books. A few were about horses.

After my first son was born, I wrote a couple of touching children's books.. ones that mothers and fathers would read to their children before they could read for themselves.

Zoom to present day when husBen has had to ban me from buying books on my Kindle because I read too fast and it can get expensive (luckily I found this page on Facebook that advertises at very least 5 free kindle books a day - Pixel of Ink).

It's been quite obvious that throughout my life, there have been two things that are quite clear about me. 1) I love to read  and 2) I love to write.

I've been having a rough time with where my life is, mentally. I'd always assumed I would help people. I wanted to be a wound nurse, an EMT, SOMETHING that the would would benefit from. That hasn't happened. I can't afford to go to school because we make too much for student aid, I don't qualify for loans, and we have too many bills to just pay my way through. I work from home with a screaming child standing by my side all day. My friends are all male and coincidentally "dump" me when they get girlfriends.

My life became a dream of helping people into a nightmare of trying to help myself cope. I keyworded clipart for a living. Who does that help? No one. No one NEEDS Clipart to survive or have a better quality of life. It's something prety to spice up a presentation, but not necessary.

On November 2, I signed up and I wrote. The goal is apparently 50,000 words. Kind of intimidating. I broke it down. I needed to write 1,600ish words a day. I smashed that out of the ballpark the first day.

I noticed my quality of life improve. If it wasn't the things themselves going on in my life, it was my ability to handle them better. Writing has been an outlet for my bottled up passion, anger, and confusion. I took those things and poured them onto paper (monitor). What resulted surprised me. I am not sure really what genre to give my novel right now. It's part sci-fi (think), part romance, part thriller. The reason this surprises me is because I have heard people "write what they know", and that is why there are so many characters in novels who are novelists.

I have never really read sci-fi nor have I read romance, so I'm not sure where I will get the materials and ideas for this story or if I will, in the end, need to alter it. Just to be clear, the romance is not the big focus of the story. I think. Well, I guess we'll see.

All I know is that there is a tiny, almost unknown, part of us that crave that love, that passion, that tugs at our heartstrings. That makes us ache and burn inside. The part of us that wants conflict and heartbreak as well as the happy ending. The part of us that wants the thrill of newness, of discovering.

I don't know what my story is about. I don't even know the names of the main characters yet. What I do know is that when I write, I feel. I feel my character's pain and devastation. I feel her relief and surprise. I feel her attraction. And I'm sure I will also feel her heart break.

Anyway. Thats the thing about writing. I'm not really sure what I'm talking about, here or there. I'm not sure of the goal or what it means. I don't care if no one ever reads this or that. What it is is freedom. What it is is contributing something to the world, even if the world does not acknowledge it. This is my gift, my desire. To just follow my desire and to write all the ideas from my brain is what gives me the ability to listen to the cries of a child for hours while I work. To help me be the happy mother that comes into the classroom on Mondays and Tuesdays to help the little ones and answer their questions. To patiently pause my music or TV show while I work to answer my husband's 5th question about something he could easily observe for himself. To be ok with myself, where I am, who I am.

I WILL be someone to this Earth.. even if it's only to be a character on paper. That's who I will be.

Making the Bed Holds the Key to the Answers of Life's Greatest Mysteries

You heard me.

Making the bed is the gateway to answering to all of life's greatest mysteries.

I read in my latest Reader's Digest (who read from somewhere else of course) that making the bed as soon as you get up in the morning leads you to a more productive life. They said that when you make your bed, you start the day feeling accomplished and leave your room (thus beginning your day) in an orderly and clean fashion.

So here it is. Day one.

As usual, my alarm clock blared loudly through the speaker in my closet. I rolled to the edge of the bed and dangled an arm and leg over, hoping it'd turn itself off. When it persisted, I swung both my legs over and pushed myself off. I groggily shuffled into the hallway (almost walking into my doorjamb in the process) and opened the door to the room next to mine.

There he was, my little alarm clock, standing up in his crib and bouncing up and down like his bed was the funnest trampoline ever! He watched me feed the fish and then held his arms out to me. I picked him up and took him back into my room to change his diaper. As I was leaving, I noticed the rumpled state of my bed and grumbled under my breath. It's not like the first things I want to do in the morning are listen to baby crying, change diaper, and then do some cleaning. Right? Right?

But I did. I sat him down on the ground and started with my husband's side of the bed, typically the most confusing. He did not disappoint. There was a corner in the middle of the bed. Did it go to the bottom? Did it go up to the top? Why were all the blankets on my side of the bed? I quickly figured it out, flattening the top sheet and adjusting the fitted sheet underneath. I pulled the blanket from my side to cover the whole of the bed and lastly, placed the pillows where they should be.

For some reason, my husband says I like to hog 80 percent of the bed. However, judging by pillow placement of the previous night's rest, I now have proof that it was indeed 70 (him) 30 (me). And he wonders why I push him all night?

As I was leaving my room to go see what Nick (the little rugrat) had gotten into, I noticed the traditional pile of clothing from the previous day's dress by my side of the bed. I figured "well, I'm supposed to be leaving my room in a state of cleanliness, so I might as well pick up the floor too". So I did. I bent down and scooped up my clothes and walked into the laundry room. I was about to dump the clothes on the floor in the "to wash" pile, but I figured "hey, since I'm in here, I might as well start it now".

So I did. So here I was, awake for less than 20 minutes, and I'd already made the bed, picked up the floor, and started a load of laundry. If you couldn't tell by my near encounter with the doorjamb earlier, I'm not a morning person. Hell, I'm not a DAY person. Actually, let me rephrase. I'm not an "awake" person. Alas, it has to be done. Anyway, so 20 minutes into my day and I'd accomplished much more than I would have four hours into my day.

It would appear that making the bed does indeed lead to better habits and better productivity. Hmm. Who'da thunk it?