Studying for and Taking Finals

Hello everyone!

     My, it's been awhile. Almost a full year since my last post. Oh well. Blogs can always be revived. That's the nice thing about them. I want to start using this thing more for posting my own writing and doing some reviews of books I've read. I might even throw in an opinion of a TV show or a movie. Who knows? It will probably be just as random as before, but I really wanted to get this up and going again. I have recently had a revitalized yearning of reading and writing and thought that sharing this might help to keep it going.
     So, without further ado, here is the piece I most recently wrote for my writing class. The prompt was to write about a process that was a metaphor for another process. One would be only the title, and the piece had to solely describe the other. It'll make more sense once you start reading. Comments are greatly appreciated as always.

Studying for and Taking Finals

     National Novel Writing Month or Nanowrimo happens every November and is a competition against yourself to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It is a race. A race against time and a race against yourself. It is a battle of stamina and pacing and planning ahead. Some choose to start writing on November 1^st without any layout of their books. Others begin the writing process after planning for months, sometimes even since the previous November. It’s whatever works for you, and nobody disses anybody else’s system.

     During the actual month when the slavery has begun, you are chained to your laptop or your notebook. The average of 1,666 words a day will allow you to finish in the allotted time, but people don’t often follow this outline. Writers become pumped for the beginning of the race, shoot off in a sprint, and by week two they are laying on their beds, ready to give up and hurl their computers across the room. Nothing is bleaker as the second week of Nanowrimo. A Navy Seals mission seems simpler to the tired and caffeine-riddled brain.

     There are too many characters to keep up with. There are too many plot lines, too many subtleties, too many things you care about that are unimportant, and too many things you would like to step on that are important. Each character is snapping their fingers in your face to get moving and write their next scene. This is when you consider your god-like power of inflicting death upon certain characters so you no longer have to worry about them.

     At the third week mark, things are slightly better. You have regained some motivation because your novel idea is not hopeless. It may stink; in the end you may be left with failure, at least in your mind. But from where you stand now, there is an attainable goal. You are tired. Actually, exhausted is a better word, even if used metaphorically. You have propped your eyelids open with toothpicks long past midnight in order to make up the word count you shirked during week two. There is no time for napping. You cannot afford to make up this sleep until December. Along with sleep deprivation is the bloating that has resulted from the combined effects of too much butt-sitting and consummation of sugary and salty snacks when the toothpicks become too painful. There is also an added level of instability from the Lake Coffee that has been absorbed. It is up to each family member’s own choice whether or not to approach this struggling writer.

     Week four is true pain. It is the last push, a Hail Mary to simply reach the 50,000 goal. You hate writing at this point and continually ask yourself why you ever thought this was a good idea while your murder your keyboard with the speed of your fingers. Whose idea was it to create this kind of torture? Yet you are participating in it. You are doing this because you started it, and there is no way in heck that you are going to back out now with only two days left.

     November 30^th is spent writing until the last minute. Anything you can cram in to bump that final number up helps. Even if you know it’s terrible and you’ll edit it out later, you just put anything on the page you can. You’re watching the clock. You’re watching the words in front of you. Your heart is beating a mile a minute, and you just hope this all pays off. Failure is so close and so very possible that your fingers are starting to actually ache from all this writing.

     And then the clock rolls over to read 12:00. And you’re done. It’s just over. All that sweat. All that work. All the carbs, the late nights, the forgoing of showers, all ran up to this point. Now, you lean back in your chair. You look at the word count at the bottom of your screen. And you smile.