One November Month
It was a hot, that first day of November when I sat at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and typed the first word of my first novel. It was hot that November. It's the heat I remember most. The cool air from our struggling air conditioners never seemed to quite make it to the verandah where our computer was situated, and every word I typed, I typed to the taunting roar of gushing air in the rooms behind me. The computer would overheat, so hot you wouldn't dare touch it, and the heat from the keyboard would become intolerable on my palms.
When the air conditioners are first turned on in summer I'm always transported back to that November. When the keyboard of my laptop starts to burn my palms I think again of the pain each of those words was to write. Yes, I'll always remember that November month. Of the dreams I held of becoming a famous novelist--of how all my dreams came crashing down, like stars shaken loose from God's hand to fall, spent and lost, into the ocean.
I entered the valley that summer--the valley that almost consumed me whole.
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Two years ago, a friend told me about this wonderful event called National Novel Writing Month. According to the FAQs on the website, the idea of the whole month was for amateur writers to band together and support each other in writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. Anyone who hit 50,000 words was a winner, no matter how rubbishy their novel. And apparently rubbish prose was mandatory. If you were a writer wanting to write the perfectly written best seller you'd always dreamed of writing then this wasn't the month for you. Quantity over quality was the motto, they said.
At fifteen, the idea of writing a 50,000 word novel in one month seemed impossible. Writing terrified me. I liked to write, I dreamed of one day writing, but as soon as I went to put one word on a page my internal editor flashed out his fire breathing tongue and burnt it. Writing had to be perfect, and thus I couldn't do it.
The challenge of NaNoWriMo appealed to me instantly. Terrified me, yes, but appealed to me at the same time. The little being inside me that truly wanted to write began dancing up and down. Maybe this was it's time to shine. It always had hated that fire breathing internal editor.
The first two weeks I steamed along full throttle. Every word I wrote was like sucking sap out of a cold tree. But no matter how painful the process the words were coming and there was nothing in the world that was going to keep me from hitting that 50k finish line.
I knew I wasn't well even then, but the doctor's didn't know what I had, and seeing as I had been doing school ok I thought I could write a novel. But something went seriously wrong in that third week. I got a continuous, highest-grade migraine you can, the kind pain killers couldn't over-ride; my brain shut down to the point where I couldn't even participate in a conversation; and I collapsed, trembling, sweating, and running a fever. The characters in my book were finally getting things together, but at 30,784 words my own world fell apart.
I went to bed and cried for a week, promising myself that one day when I was better I’d finish it.
As you all know my health only went down from there. In January I found out I had Glandular Fever and two thyroid disease. Then my doctor told me I had Adrenal Fatigue. Then Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and a chronic digestive problem bordering on Crohn's Disease.
The dream of finishing my first novel seemed as unattainable as catching a star. I was lost, beaten under the relentless storms of my life, and my dreams were as equally lost, sunk forever in the deep depths of the ocean.
~~~
This year I hadn't planned to finish it. At the beginning of November I just mooned around on the NaNoWriMo forums dreaming about all the novels I’d one day write. Then I stumbled across a thread in one forum for the chronically ill. As I read through their posts of woe and triumph, a small wriggle of something scary began to grow, slowly, ever upward into the very pit of my gut. Could I do it? I did after all only have 19,085 words to go.
I went back to bed and told myself I was silly. But there was this whirlwind in my gut and though I tried to ignore it, it just got bigger until I knew I had to let it loose.
A week before, I had just begun scribbling extensive story ideas for a wonderful story I desperately wanted to write. But somehow the fact that I hadn’t finished my first novel, scared me from starting. I knew to get it written I had to first finish that first novel. If I didn’t, I had no assurance I could finish this new one. I couldn’t take that thought because I love this story too much. It’s beautiful and I have to write it.
It was like the whirlwind. I knew that if I didn't let the first one out, the second one would only get bigger, until in the end I'd choke with the story inside me. I've heard authors talk of this strange phenomenon--of these stories some of us have to write because we simply can not.
So I jumped in to NaNoWriMo half way through. I wrote, I panicked, and somehow in the miracle of a late night, I hit 50k. I can't describe the feeling that washed over me. It was three a.m. in the morning, my eyes were shrouded in fatigue, and I barely had the strength to move the mouse, but the little number was there on my screen. I had reached 50,000 words and gone streaming by laughing myself silly. This was life, this was glory, this was--dare I say it--a novel?
It's been almost two weeks since that night. I look at the thick stack of papers on my desk and I wonder if I really did write every one of those words. It seems impossible. But then I hear the gush of cool air in the room behind me, the keyboard is hot on my palms and I tell myself it must be real.
The ocean is deep, but God's arm even longer, and this one falling star he caught for me.
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