For those who don't follow me all over the internet, I'm not dead. I'm just in the middle of National Novel Writing Month.
I've stumbled across haters early on this year, some of them particularly more frightening than others (I'm looking at you, dude who has sent me legitimate hate mail through the USPS. Yeah. The cops know about you, by the way, you creepy motherfucker). This is almost on par with last year, when some people decided the appropriate reaction to "Oh, I can't write that many words in a month" was to tell me to kill myself.
What the actual fuck, you guys.
I have some important things to say in regards to all of you.
- My word goal is not your word goal. I do not expect you to chase the Million. I don't expect *me* to chase the Million. It is not for everyone. I am not trying to invalidate your words, nor am I trying to make you feel bad about not writing more. My goal is in no way whatsoever related to yours. Telling me to write less so you don't feel inadequate is not ok by any standards. Telling me to slow down because I'm writing too fast is not ok. Telling me I should do anything to make you feel better about your goal/pace/wordcount other than asking for encouragement is not fucking ok.
- You have absolutely no right to try to make me feel bad about needing to challenge myself to more than 50k in a month. NaNo is one of the best challenges I get in the year because it makes me churn out those longer stories, the ones that only writing 50k would barely make a dent in the plot.
- You have no right to tell me I don't need the inspiration NaNo provides. If I didn't need the inspiration NaNo gives me, why the fuck do I come back to this every year? If I don't need the inspiration, why am I not published already? Why am I not doing bigger and better things? It's because I need this month just as much as you do. I need a month to forget about everything else in my life and WRITE.
- You have no right to make me feel like less of a human being just because you don't understand why I would want to write more than 50k in 30 days. By extension, you have no right to make ANYONE feel like less of a human being because you don't understand the "why".
- You have no right to try to play off a blatant bit of hatred with a "lol, just kidding". It is hateful, it is hurtful, and we have feelings, too. One negative comment is enough to undo literal hundreds of positive comments from other people. I try very hard to support everyone, whether you manage to write five words or five hundred thousand words. I try hard to not make you feel bad about your word count, and I try hard to not make you feel bad if you're behind your pace goal. Right now, I'm catching up for the 11k behind my pace goal I happen to be, and when you point out that my pace goal is more than you can write in three weeks, express hate, and pass it off with a "just kidding", it fucking hurts. I am legitimately afraid to post in threads other than the two main OA threads because people keep posting "I hate you all lol jk jk" messages. I don't snap back with, "haha, you suck because you only have two thousand words I'm kidding just joking haha it was a joke". If I did, you would be pissed. I should not be afraid to post anywhere. I should not be afraid to ask for help in a genre lounge, or introduce myself to the other 20somethings. I am tired of the thinly-masked hate, I am tired of the blatant hate, I'm tired of the people who think we don't have feelings, and you have no right at all to do this to us.
- Your word goal is just as impressive as mine. Writing 50k in a month is an awesome achievement, and I'm not just saying that to make you feel better. Six years ago, if you'd asked me to write 50k in a month, I would've thought you were absolutely fucking insane. We are all overachievers. We're all doing something awesome this month. Just because my wordcount is higher doesn't mean I'm doing any better than you are; I have the exact same struggles to find time, figure out my plot, and make my characters more than two-dimensional.
Now, some of the awesome things about overachieving.
- I have met more insanely awesome people than I ever imagined through the OA thread this year. They're a support community, there when everything falls to shit (which it has several times this month alone), and they never make me feel unwelcome, whether they're aiming for 55k or the Million alongside me.
- I know more people through the OA thread and chat who are genuinely happy when I hit my next goal that it almost (almost) makes up for the people who feel nothing but irrational hatred. I love that we are all cheerleaders for everyone, that we all support each other, and we can have friendly wars with each other and not worry about who wins or is better or any such thing, because we've long since accepted that most of us have different writing speeds and pace goals.
- These people support me no matter what. If I manage to write a single word. or write 70k in a day, or if I finally get to spend a night with my husband, or if I finally get a freaking night off work, my fellow OAers are there to celebrate with me. When my grandfather passed away on Tuesday, the OA thread was the first group of people to know because they understand what it's like to be in the middle of an insane story at an insane pace and not want to write a single fucking word. They're every ounce of inspiration I need exactly when I need it, and they're the comfort I need when I'm wondering just why the hell I do this every year.
I spend more energy than is really healthy or relevant to my actual life cleaning up drama, be it from other OAers (that's right, we're not fucking perfect), the people in my daily life, or the people I'm forced to interact with because they don't understand why I do things the way I do.
I do not have time to answer your questions about my word count. I do not have time to respond to every person who pops up with a "You know you're not supposed to count words written before November, right?" question. I do not have time to deal with you and your distractions from your own novels, and if I could turn off NaNoMail from non-approved people, I would. I don't ask you about your word count, so why the fuck do you think you can ask me about mine? Am I constantly prodding you, asking if those words you have were legitimately written in November?
No.
I'm not.
And even if you had brought some over, would I care?
No.
It's none of my fucking business what you do.
Stop thinking what I do is your business.
Now, for the love of everything that's holy, can we knock it off with the fucking drama and get back to the writing?
Today is an important day for me.
Seven years ago, on October 6, I didn't die.
As a cheesey celebration of that fact, I'm declaring today "Friendly Graffiti Day". I know far too well how much a little bit of kindness can make everything ok, even if it's just long enough to make a terrible decision REALLY obvious.
Join me, if you want. Scrawl nice things on bulletin boards, in bathroom stalls, in random forum comments, on tumblr (when the maintenence is over), wherever someone might need it. Use post-it notes or pens or scratch things with keys.
I love the people I know, and every day I get to spend knowing them is an awesome day.
Also, you.
Right there.
On the internet.
You're an amazing person. You are loved, you deserve the best, and you are beautiful. Never, ever forget that.
NaNoWriMo lurks on the horizon, I don't have a plot (or characters), and I am once again seriously considering going for the big Million.
I have a million and one reasons I shouldn't go for it, like my work schedule (six days a week), MLing on my own for the first time, moderating a part of the NaNo forums, my total lack of free time, my lack of anything to write, and yet here I am, trying to convince myself all the reasons I have NOT to do it are better than the one reason I have to do it again.
That reason, you ask?
It's not the glory. It's not to piss off the people who said I couldn't do it last year (and still don't believe I did). It's definitely not the utter lack of sleep, dangerous overcaffeination, and blatant disregard for personal well-being. Writing the Million last year was one of the most ridiculous and fun things I've ever challenged myself to do, and while a large portion of it made very little sense, it did get me writing more than my standard crap genres. That's right. The reason I want to do it again is to make myself write in genres I don't typically touch and have fun doing it.
I know me. If left to my own devices, I'll write the same boring fantasy adventure story with the same boring characters, vaguely disguised as a new and unique plot. Sure, I could go adopt a plot, adopt characters, and run with it, but I would still tell the same story every single time.
That's why. That's why I want to ignore everything screaming at me to not do this, and what part of my brain I'll listen to in the end is still undecided.
Between getting a job (and keeping it) and finishing some sewing commissions, I've once again ignored my blog.
'Letcon 2012 was fantastic, as was getting out of this town for a while. Life (in most aspects) has been good. That's right. Not just ok. Good. Outside isn't as scary, I'm writing again (thanks to Camp NaNo), and I've finally put chords to some of the songs I've been scrawling in random notebooks all year.
Also, I'm part of this video blog with my fellow 'Lets (although not all of us are vlogging). I promise I'm more timely about my vlogs than I am about this blog.
Things haven't been anything close to ok in a long time. I'm honestly forgetting what it feels like to be ok.
While recent events should make me feel less ok, they're honestly making me feel better in my own little way.
So here it is.
I know I'm a tremendously vain, self-centered, and selfish person. There's no denying that. I need a lot of attention. I tend to ignore people because my spotlight NEEDS the attention. Blame my childhood. Blame my adulthood. Blame my general terror about life in general. Make sure you blame me, though. Admitting all of this won't make it instantly ok, especially if I've been snubbing you lately.
I'm sorry, by the way, if I have. Apologizing now probably doesn't do much to help. From here on, though, call me on it. Tell me I'm overdoing it, or that I need to back off/cool down. Tell me that you need attention, too. Be mean. Be nice. Be whatever you think I deserve. Make me feel things. Slap me, if you want. Don't be afraid of what might happen.
My life is in the middle of a few Big Changes. If you can't support that I'm trying to be a better person, you know where the door is. It'll be easier for all of us if you use it now. I won't run damage control, I won't try to fix everything. I'll miss you, sure, because I trusted you enough to be myself, but I won't blame you. I'll be a bit jealous. Most days, I wish I could walk out the door and leave me behind.
A couple months ago, someone I tried way too hard to be friends with after a misunderstanding turned into a full-blown "I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU NO MORE" fight (lacking only the Frenchmen to throw cows and taunts around) informed me that I've changed, and that I wasn't the person she loved when we first met. It's true, in many ways, that I'm not the same person I was when any of us met. It hurt because she was half the reason I made any progress in my head at all. She was one of the few people who was there when the story came spilling out. For lack of better terms, it sucked. Our entire reconciliation was strained and for the sake of a mutual friend. The whole thing was a mistake, but at least she had the balls to walk out when she realised it. I would've sat forever, afraid to say anything.
And then there's the rest of me. The part of me that will want to just stop and sob hysterically over losing you. The part that will be furious about me using poor sentence structures when I try to rationalise this all in my head.
I'm going to be upset. Losing friends sucks, especially when I was comfortable enough to not hide behind the walls I've always hidden behind. In the end, though, it's like being dumped by the person you thought was 'The One'. It sucks. I'll cry like an idiot. I'll pretend I'm perfectly fine with you leaving, then I'll post an angry blog/facebook message/send a few angry texts. Eventually, though, I'll get over it and move on with my life.
Losing anyone you care about is not pleasant, but honestly, I'd rather it happens now. I stand by what I said. If you can't support me, you're not my friend. It's not worth the effort on either of our parts to try to fix it. If the trust isn't there, it won't be there again.
My fear of zombies is fairly well known. It remains to this day one of the few things that will trigger panic-filled episodes just by me thinking about it, and I'm not talking deep contemplation here. I'm talking that fleeting thought, much like 'Oh, did I leave the gas on? No, I'm a fucking SQUIRREL!' (I shall refrain from more references people don't get.)
I've known this whole time that zombies have made me unbearably anxious (which is roughly the last eight years of my life) that it's an unlikely, at best, scenario. I'm well aware that it's silly to let myself panic over this. The other day, I realized something (on my way to get a massage during a thunderstorm, which triggered two other major anxieties, but that's a different story).
Years ago, my brother was obsessed with the supposed alien invasion that was going to happen on January 1, 2000. The winter of 1996, when my parents were just starting the divorce paperwork, my mum, my brother, and I went to stay with my grandfather over Christmas break. We went to see Mars Attacks!, which was very much not a scary movie, but I was on the verge of my ninth birthday and it was TERRIFYING. My brother did pretty much nothing but make fun of me for it and as his obsession with aliens grew, so did my terror.
As I grew up (and as January 1, 2000 passed without an invasion), I got a few laughs in at my expense. Let's face it. If other life exists in this universe (which I firmly believe is true), I sincerely doubt they're just going to invade because they can. The nightmares disappeared, as did my fear. It was a full ten years after I first saw Mars Attacks! that I was actually able to watch it and realise it's freaking HILARIOUS. Of course, by this point, zombies had moved into the part of my brain aliens used to inhabit.
It's not just me. My brother, after seeing the first Jurassic Park, decided cloned dinosaurs would be the death of us all, while I decided for the second time that I wanted to be a t-rex when I grew up. It's a ridiculous fear. We both recognize it now. Back in 1993, though, dinosaurs running amok just happened to be the scariest thing my brother could imagine. In 1996, aliens became mine, and in 2004, zombies took over for aliens. I'm terrified of being outside at night, I can't stand being in crowds, thunderstorms occasionally (but not always) launch me into panic attacks, and I can't let a passing thought of zombies cross my mind without feeling my chest tighten and my heart beat faster. Even here, just talking about my fear of zombies, I'm telling myself that the panic is completely unnecessary. My brother copes with his fears by laughing at them, but he's afraid of salamanders, spiders, and cloned dinosaurs. Spiders are easy to smash. His wife can move salamanders should they ever find one. Cloned dinosaurs? Unlikely, at best. His life has been free of velociraptor attacks since 1985.
Mine are a little harder to laugh at than his. I can avoid going outside at night, I stay away from large crowds (especially in places I'm not entirely familiar with), and I avoid reading and watching things that involve zombies. If a thunderstorm rolls in, I find my flashlight, make a cup of tea, and read a book until it blows over.
There are some things I won't get to enjoy to the same extent as other people, like zombie walks (and the local zombie carnival), even though I'm pretty damn good at doing zombie stage makeup. Zombies have become so prevalent in today's culture that it's hard to avoid them. That little bit of doubt I've convinced myself exists, the bit of doubt that says humans are totally capable of making this happen may have some truth. That doesn't make zombies any more likely. I know this, and I'm not going to let a panic attack grip me and run every time I accidentally let a zombie thought shamble across my mind.
I'm not saying I'm going to go watch a bunch of zombie movies and read ALL the apocalyptic novels. That's still asking too much. I am, however, saying this.
Zombies, you've held my heart and mind in terror for far too long. Some weird shit happens on this planet and it has been for years. It'll keep happening long after I'm gone. "OMFG ZOMBIES!" is not a rational reaction. Twelve years ago, I would've blamed it on aliens. I'm terrified of zombies, true, but I'm not going to let it control my life. I'm not going to hide inside, terrified of every noise I hear through a window, terrified of every movement I catch through the curtains over this. Letting fear control my life hasn't given me a very fulfilling life so far. Spending three weeks unable to go outside, even to check the mail or get something from the car, is not ok. If zombies are going to happen, I can worry about it then and only then.
