the Art of Secret Noveling

  It was grade six when I perfected my art.  The awkward, funny grade six where boobs begin and one has to become accustomed to wearing things like bras.  Very strange indeed.  Stranger still for boys who had to get used to noticing that girls wore bras, and that those bras could be snapped.
  I wasn't what you'd call popular, or even cool, but I had my niche.  I was the nerdy kid who loved English class and didn't seem to have the proper hatred of spelling every proper grade sixer had.  I didn't even struggle too much despite the fact that I rarely paid attention in class.  I was an avid note-taker, or so my teachers thought as I wrote furiously in my notebooks. The perfect student really, unlike any grade sixer they'd ever seen.  At least, I assume so based upon my report card comments and lack of any reprimand. 
  I wasn't taking notes at all, I merely wrote down the most meagre of necessities to get me through my unchallenging classes.  I was writing, though, oh yes I was writing furiously; secretly writing story upon story and even the occasional poem.
  At recess my friends would gather round to read them, giving much praise and no real criticism at all.  That was my niche, to provide stories for the others to read and come up with the imaginary details necessary to survive middle school.  Then, I was fascinating.  Without those words, I was merely a nerdy usurper into their ranks. 
  Stories back then were always ten handwritten pages long, never once edited, never judged harshly, and never read beyond the class.  "The writer" was my identity, my niche.
  There was a joy to that secret writing I haven't grown out of.  A naughty adventure in my otherwise very well-behaved day that I relished.  It still amazes me how good I was at getting away with it back then, simply by leaning my binder between my belly and my desk so the teacher couldn't see what I was writing all along.  Unless, of course, they were behind me.  With one eye in the present I could see that coming and simply cover up my looseleaf stories with my class notes.  When I was stuck on a word or unsure of how my protagonist should proceed, I would simply stare at the teacher intently and get lost in my musings while they believed I was hanging on their every word.  No harm done, really, and great deal of pre-adolescent literature was thus produced. 
  A recent NaNoWriMo post was dealing with the adventures of secret noveling at work.  Delicious.  BUT...I do have a good job I'd hate to lose, so those adventures will have to wait for another day. 

Blog of doom?

  I'm not a particularly computer-oriented person, so the whole blog idea is an alien being invading my fingertips and forcing me to enter the 20th century.  And by that I mean the 21st century.  I still write my fiction longhand with a dipping pen so how am I going to pull this off?

  Why am I doing this?  I'm still reeling from last week's bitter rejection of my very first novel.  It's not even the rejection that really hurts, I know these things take time.  Its the fact that they shredded her.  They shredded my own book-child, with all of my honest and vulnerable words, aborted and chopped up by some evil dictator who didn't like her sense of the world.  Writing right now is the hardest thing to face, I'd rather numb myself with bad TV.  I don't even enjoy TV, it just means that I don't have to feel for a little while. 

  Really, it's only been a few days but it's time to feel something even if it turns me into a weepy mess of a woman for a while.  No one needs to know, right?  So I've created this blog and signed up for Nanowrimo in a crazy attempt to walk right past all those demons of discouragement, re-read my novel child, and send her off to someone else in the great, scary publishing world.

  Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month (November), is an idea I can only presume was hatched by a group of escaped mental patients wishing to drive a greater chunk of the population over the edge to join their ranks.  Or, possibly, an inspiring group of creatively driven souls who are willing and able to push that same chunk of the population off the couch and into their imaginations.  They accomplish both of these tasks by goading, encouraging, and inspiring their members to write a 50 000-word novel in 30 days.  My mom hooked me up with them.  Imagine that.  Crazy?  Yes.  Inspiring?  Absolutely.  Just the thing to get me out of my creative stupor. 

  Now my only problem is - what do I write about?  There are two novels in my head right now, bouncing around and noisily piecing their plots together.  One is the sequel to my chopped up novel child, the other a rather epic fantasy based on a recurring dream I had during my teenage years.  Maybe I should just write them both.  In one month (she laughs, but there is fear in her laughter).

  The point is writing again.  Working out my fears, my sense of loss over that shredded hard copy (as if I don't have a copy on the computer, in my desk, and safely on my mother's nightstand) of my poor book.  That's right, putting pen to paper again and laughing at paper shredders everywhere.  Apparently, I seem to be doing that already.  Phew.