This is a blog, right?

NaNoWriMo and some things I've been doing recently

I’m in a writing mood, so I’m old-school blogging on Substack. I guess that’s as much what it’s for as anything else.

I’ve decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month as a means of finishing the first draft of my novel. Many attempts have been made over the last few years, but I haven’t properly done NaNoWriMo since high school, when I was gleefully and anonymously writing fanfiction and blogging on LiveJournal.com.

I feel well-equipped to take on 1,500 words a day since I started doing Morning Pages (which, unfortunately, work really well even if writing is the last thing you want to do first thing in the morning). I feel like I’ve I’ve been doing calisthenics for the last year and my muscles do feel stronger. I do feel more limber in my writing. God, it sucks when something works.

That said, we’re only two days in, so I guess I’ll just have to keep posting here to keep myself accountable. It does feel like this will stick because I’m deep into the project of my novel. I don’t know if I’m quite ready to share my elevator pitch, yet, but I do think NaNoWriMo will help me get to the end of this draft, finally. And maybe I’ll have something to say early in the new year.

Some other updates, I guess: I started a Fiverr for graphic design work. I’m deeply afraid I’m a fraud with no credentials — I suppose that’s that imposter syndrome thing I keep hearing people talk about — but I’m also desperate to get my finances in order and maybe “fill my cup” in a different way. I miss my marketing job and doing design work professionally. And I miss collaborating creatively, so I hope this might supplement both my income and my interests in positive ways. In the meantime, I’m making weird shit like this:

I’m posting more of my weird sketchbook art on Instagram—and am for some reason maintaining three accounts. I really believe I need all of them. You can follow me here or here, dealer’s choice, I guess. The third one is the all essential private account and I’m afraid I can’t divulge its existence. But I hope you’ll give me at least one follow. There’s very little strategy that goes into what I post where, and even I get confused.

Perhaps I’ll return tomorrow with some “About Me” content. Writing of all kinds seems to help. Help what? I’m not sure yet, but I suppose all I can do is keep doing it and see.