Thursday, November 8, 2007

Writing

With nanowrimo AND nablopomo in full swing, I guess you're reading a fair bit about about people's frustration with their writing efforts. You won't mind me adding mine will you?????? LOLOL.

My novel has advanced itself by 500 words in the past 3 days. Hmmmm...... Not a great effort. My body has decided to play "funny buggers" with me and I keep fainting. I think I should have sent my body a memo stating that November was not a good month to decide to do this!!!!! When I'm not fainting, I'm getting lovely head spins and all kinds of dizzy-ness which leads to nausea and well..... I won't go into anymore detail than that.

Yesterday I finally gave in and took myself to the doctor. Actually, I didn't take myself because when I walk, I keep veering off to the left..... so I figured driving might not be a good idea. Too many places to the left of our road lead to quite a big drop and I'm scared of heights......

So, apparently I have viral labirynthitus (no idea if I've spelt that correctly) and my instructions are to take things easy and slowly and not to bend down. Do you realise how much in my regular day involved bending down????? A LOT more than I'd ever realised. And SLOW????? They took that word out of my vocabulary before I was even born.

But, I'm hoping that means that I can spend the day today writing..... I can be upright to do that and as long as I'm not feeling dizzy or nauseous, I *might* come up with something outrageously witty to write in my novel (or not.....). (Note to self.....writing a *funny* novel when you're in the midst of recovering from a nervous breakdown and struggling with depression was NOT the best idea you've had). Add to the mix PMT and yeah.......I don't think this novel is going to be quite as funny as I'd hoped.....

One thing I have been thankful for so far this month is the fact that I know how to touch type. What an awesome and USEFUL skill that has turned out to be!!!!! Unlike algebra and all that useless stuff they attempted (without success I might add) to fill my brain with during my high school years. I can still remember my early typing lessons in year 8. We had those archaic (they were archaic even THEN) manual typewriters where you needed a black belt in martial arts just to get a mark on the page. And the teacher banging his pen on the desk and calling out "a a a space....." while you typed in time. LOL.

When I got to have *some* say in what I learnt at school the following year (new school, less archaic typewriters), I thought to myself "typing, that was a great BLUDGE subject....let's do that again". Kind of ironic really to think that the subject I chose for a "bludge" has turned out to be one of the most useful things I learnt my entire school life! LOL. (speaking of "bludge" subjects.....one day I might tell you of my home ec nightmares where I was paired with 3 guys who took home ec for the "bludge" factor).

Anyway, I think I will be thankful for my touch typing skills over the next few days as I'm around 6000+ words behind at the moment...... aaaarrrrrrhhhhhhhh.

Nablopomo (the blogging one) on the other hand is turning out to be quite a useful PROCRASTINATION tool....... :-) So useful in fact that I've started a SECOND blog. Yes, I am a little crazy although I was sane enough NOT to register that blog for Nablopomo as well!!!! So, I'm not necessarily writing every day on that blog - although as it turns out I have something to say over there most days. Funny that..... LOL.

I always thought it was rather odd that people would have more than 1 blog. Who has time to write for 1 blog, let alone MORE than 1. Eeeekk.... But as I've been blogging, I guess I've come to understand more the role that readers play in a blog (like, if you don't have any....you just wanna cry......). I *could* have written everything I wanted to say on the one blog but this second blog has a definite theme/niche. I imagine there'll be some overlap between the readership of the 2 blogs but perhaps each of them will have their own unique readers as well.

Have I got you completely curious now? Okay, well if you'd like to have a look at my other blog, you can find it here http://lightening74.wordpress.com . If you like it, please leave me a comment to let me know. If not, well, just come back here..... :-)

I'd best sign off now and see if I can't add a few words to my novel......

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope you feel better soon - fainting is never good fun. I'm also a touch typer and I love it - I used to charge people money for me to type up their assignments in primary and high school! ;)

I'm going to check out your other blog - good luck with the whole NaPloMo thingy! :D

Anonymous said...

perhaps your humour will merely be a little black not absent.

hugs

feel better soon darl!

The Tin House said...

L, you & I took typing for precisely the same reason. I had "office studies" sandwiched between two double periods - the first was Physics, the second was chemistry. What was I thinking? While I can touch type and thank my lucky stars for it, I cannot remember precisely what the study of physics involves, and I have not remembered a single chemical equation or whatever it is you call them! I do hope you feel much better very soon. How inconvenient to be ill when you've got so much work to do! xx

The Tin House said...

btw - I visited your 2nd blog yesterday and found a couple of the blog links didn't work. Can't remember which ones they were which isn't helpful I know but thought I'd mention it now.

lightening said...

Lisa - do you mean my blogroll? I'll have a look. Thanks. I did have some trouble with it when I was setting it up.

Lisa - you had double physics and double chem on the same day? Ouch! I never took physics cos they told me it was related to maths! So I stuck with chem, biol and 1 maths the way through (plus humanities subjects). That was more than enough for me!

Precious - I'm not sure I even know what black humour is! I've figured out the problem with my novel though. I need to make my main character lighten up a little. I'm very good at taking the mick out of myself but don't always get *other* humour. It's not so funny if my main character doesn't find her antics amusing....

Katie - thanks for your kind thoughts. :)

Simple Blog Writer said...

Sorry to hear about your fainting. I fainted only once and it was very strange. Please, take it easy and let your body rest and heal.

As for funny, I'm writing hundreds of words only to set up one funny line...and it's not working. Yet, I keep doing it, probably because I have no plot yet.

You definitely can type! I'm amazed at what the amount you are able to post. I enjoy what you write.

Take care of yourself,

SBW

Frogdancer said...

Cheer up Lightening!
Just put your keyboard on the ground, make sure you faint next to it, and then when you come to you're already in position to document it. You might get another 500 words.

(Does that help?)

Look after yourself. Doing the novel is not worth it if it's doing your head in and making you get whatever it was that the doctor said you had. (That's right... blame it on the book.)

lightening said...

SBW - I've only started fainting since my first child was born. Thankfully it doesn't happen too often although it's not too bad a feeling - providing you don't hit something on the way down. Quite peaceful really.

frogdancer - yeah that really helps. LOL. Believe me there are NO WORDS when I faint. Yeah, didn't expect all this writing to do my head in this badly!!!!! Now, you're not trying to put me off here are you? Can just see you cackling there in the background cos you're waaaayyyy ahead of me in words. But ha ha, I don't have any interviews to do. :-)

Kez said...

Hope the fainting stops ASAP! Off to check out your other blog :)

lightening said...

Hi Kez,
Think I'm on the mend from the fainting now. :) Thankfully!