Not Nanoing

As Nanowrimo passes me by this year, and my prescription for my SSRI has run out without refills because I don't have a doctor locally yet, I am struggling with inertia, frustration, and feeling a little lost.

Kauai is not an easy place to live, despite being a wonderful place to have an amazing time. I have had more fun in the months since we moved here--more unadulterated joyous fun--than I had in the last ten years, easily. I love the ocean, I love waves, and I (newly) love boogie boarding. It's heaven, in that respect.

Yesterday there was a sea turtle sunbathing on the beach. It's the third one we've seen doing that since August. I mean, flipping AMAZING.

It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. And I've lived in some beautiful places, and I even feel disloyal to those places saying it, but let's be real. There are flowers everywhere. In the bushes, in the grass, on the trees, in people's hair, everywhere. Rainbows are almost a daily occurrence. I'm not even exaggerating, I think it might actually be daily. I love the wild chickens, trailing chicks behind them peeping, and the flamboyant roosters everywhere. Geckos--some bright green--on the walls. People don't dress as tacky. I mean, I'm not the fashion police (like, at all). But give me Hawaiian prints over hot pink zebra stripes any day.

But everything you heard about it being expensive is true. It's oddly not the way I expected, somehow, though I didn't have a clear idea anyway. But Jeff and I are both working full time, and we borrowed several thousand dollars from family to move, and now I'm really stressing because we barely make ends meet and we have to pay these people back. I cannot live with not paying them back in a timely manner, I just can't deal with it. They were so generous to help us and we're eating ramen and quesadillas most nights and we are overdrawn in one bank account. It's overwhelming.

Getting a new driver's license is going to be a mountain to climb because I'd let my CA one expire so now I have to go through the whole process--road test, learner's permit, the works.

I have yet to get all my paperwork in to the Hawaii DOE for my job and I'm afraid that when I do they'll dock my salary because of sticky details that shouldn't make a difference but probably will.

My job has these wonderful aspects and these super annoying and stressful aspects that I won't go into detail about. All I'll say is that I'm very grateful to be working with the co-teacher I'm with. He's awesome.

And Jeff is seriously considering applying for PhD programs so it's likely we'll move at the end of this year. Which, considering all the things that make living here hard, is probably going to be the best thing in the long run. But it's more uncertainty and another hella expensive and challenging move... my three year old regressed on potty training with the Kauai move--will he be in diapers in Kindergarten if we move again?

I'm venting. I started out writing this post as a way to feel like I am writing even though my WiP is sitting in a digital drawer gathering binary dust instead of moving along in the Nanowrimo flow. I miss the Nanowrimo flow. I miss having more than a half an hour to write once a week when I should be lesson planning.

Anyway... are you doing Nano this year?
What uncertainties are you staring down these days?

Wow, it's been a year!

Jeez, guys! I'm sorry I've been so MIA. I didn't realize so much time had passed.

Last year was busy and in many ways a great year. I really enjoyed my teaching job and got to do a *lot* of new projects which is probably one of the main reasons I let this blog sleep for so long. Then this summer several not-so-great things happened which definitely cramped my writing style both in terms of any blogging that might have happened and any novel writing. But that led to an amazing new chapter in my life: we moved to Hawai'i--the Garden Isle of Kaua'i, to be precise.

There's been a bumpy adjustment period. Many things have changed. For one thing, I'm now teaching middle school math! I really enjoy it, but it is very different from what I was doing before (one of the bad things that happened is that the district closed my school--I'm heartbroken about that). I've started a blog where I'm going to explain how to teach certain math lessons. It's mainly for the parents of my students to use, but you can check it out here, if you're curious.

There's a writer's conference locally in November and I really want to go! One of my goals for this new WiP, which is not set in any of my previous universes, is to attempt to go the traditional publishing route. I make no promises. I may lose patience with that very quickly. One of the reasons I indie publish is that I am a control freak so it really suits me to do everything myself. But I've decided I want to give it a shot, just to see what happens.

I'm snatching little moments here and there to work on the WiP. Like, sometimes only 15 minutes. It's better than nothing. And honestly I'm totally out of the habit of writing for long stints. I stayed home from work one day and could have written for hours and could only manage an hour or so.

For the current WiP I've been doing a lot more planning, outlining, etc. than ever before. I used to be such a pantser. But it's been a gradual process over the last few years propelled by the challenge of not having regular time to write. Now with my writing time in ever more brief snippets, the outline and brainstorms and character descriptions and everything are absolutely essential. There is no way I'd keep track of anything without them.

I have 29K words done and I wish I thought I could do NaNo this year. Maybe I'll try to set myself a more attainable goal and go for it.

How about you, where are you at with your creative projects? How have things changed for you over the years? Let me know in the comments!