It's called college. And really, it's not that funny. Fun yes, funny, not so much.
I had this grand vision of floating from class to class in sweater sets and loafers, working hard in class and at home, but since I am a super-woman, getting it all done with the barest hint of exertion.
It has been two months since this new chapter of my life included college. I am excelling at school (4 A's & 1 B which WILL be an A by December, dammit!). Home- not so much. I am not just talking about mopping the kitchen or dusting here. I've had trouble remembering to take my kid to the dentist or get the bills paid on time. That is not good.
It seems the last two weeks, I've gained some equilibrium. Home is still where I am lagging, but not so badly. However, my dream of being the plus size Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face has fallen by the wayside. It had to. What I am now is a serious college student, and a writer. I have written more this semester than I've made time to do in the last several years combined. That is one of the many reasons I needed this. College would force me to do what I couldn't (wouldn't?) force on myself.
Tomorrow is Halloween. It is also the last day of October. Why is this significant? Because the first day of November starts NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. I, along with the other five participants in my out of class fiction workshop group have pledged to "do" NaNoWriMo. To "do" it, we have to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That's right, fifty K in 30 days. 1,700 words a day on average.
Fifty thousand words is the length of a short novel. If you do 50K, you should have a book. So that's the plan. I have the outline of a short romance novel (think serial romance a la early Nora Roberts writing about the MacGreagors or the Stanislavskis). Mine isn't really about a family legacy though, but the tonality is what I am shooting for.
But before that (tonight & tomorrow), I have to prep and polish a short fiction piece for my "Craft of Fiction" class. I have several I can use, but I am leaning toward an idea I've not worked out completely yet. We'll see how it goes. I am sitting in a lounge at the student union, in complete silence on this Saturday night during the big pumpkin weekend, listening via earbuds to local NPR classical music (swing right now actually) and feeling more free and happy than I would have thought possible.
How apt. "Lush Life" just came on the NPR program. Life is feeling pretty lush right now.
Happy Hallowe'en all. :)
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