Here it is, another Wednesday. I swear this past week went by way too fast. It doesn't help that our little guy keeps growing up and mastering new things. He's definitely not my little baby anymore. I took a picture of him this week that I have fallen in love with. I think I'm going to print it and put it up near my desk.
Isn't he adorable? Of course he's trying to touch the camera with his cute little finger but it looks like he's telling me to wait. And that is something I think we all need to hear sometimes. Especially when trying to get something done that needs more time than we are willing or able to give it. The deadline for the creative nonfiction contest was Saturday and I ended up not submitting anything. I went from thinking my piece was pretty good on Friday evening to thinking it was crap by the time I woke up Saturday morning. I knew there wasn't enough hours in Saturday to edit it and change my mind. At this point, I still like it and I might polish the story and keep it, but I'm glad I didn't submit it. It wasn't ready and creative nonfiction isn't the field where I have done most of my writing, although it was definitely fun to try. I think the blog is kind of like creative nonfiction but I'm not limited by a 1200-1500 word count. And I can include adorable pictures of my baby.
I've also been spending some time this week rereading my NaNoWriMo novel. I think I'm going to start referring to it under it's temporary title since NaNoWriMo novel is a real tongue twister. I'll refer to it as "Lucy", as that is the main character's name. For now. I'm over halfway done reading it after spending several hours reading and taking notes one night. Part of me wants to rush through this first reading and start with the rewrites. I've made notes about chapters that are lacking; characters that I need to know more about and have noticed that the later chapters have a lot of me telling the reader what is happening instead of showing them (I think this is a result of "Lucy" being a NaNoWriMo novel and I was rushed to get something down on paper/computer). I've done enough reading of both novels and of writing guide books to know those chapters need to be rewritten but I am looking forward to the challenge. However, my son has reminded me that I can't rush this. I can't read through it, quickly make some changes and think that it is good enough to send out. I need to wait. This is going to take months of hard work (but hopefully not years) for me to arrive at something I'm proud of and that I want to share with people that aren't in my immediate family.
So, I will take the little guy's unintentional advice and wait and not rush this part of the process. I'm not going to set firm deadlines about when I want the revision part to be over and begin submitting it. Neither the novel or myself would win in that situation. I know when I'd like to have my revisions done but realize that life with a baby (plus two other kids) is just too unpredictable to set those kind of goals. At least right now. In five years when all the kids are in school, I can make daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals for my writing. But right now? The writing can wait. It will be sitting here on the computer no matter what. My kids? They're only young once so I'm going to enjoy them.
This is totally not where I thought this post was going to end. I had something completely different in mind when I started but glad it ended here. I'm still very dedicated to my writing but the idea of waiting made me rethink my priorities while writing this post. However, I did want to mention something that I thought was cool. The night I spent hours reading "Lucy", I dreamt about the characters, like I do when reading other novels. My mind kind of imagines what is going to happen to them and helps the characters become more real for me and makes me obsessed with a book until I finish it. I guess my mind thinks it's good enough to dream about. And it was neat to have the novel "come to life" in my dream - characters walking and talking. The house was just as I imagined it. It was very cool and made me smile when I woke up.
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