Walking and writing! NaNoWriMo!

I haven't written here in a while.  Different things have kept me from blogging.  First, I have been recovering from a surgery, and just like with the "Walking Against Depression" I have learned that walking is a great help in this recovery as well.  I had a robotic hysterectomy a few weeks back.  Part of this, and many other surgeries, includes cleaning out the bowel.  The horrible result of that is gas, burping, and stomach pain.  The way to get things moving, so to speak, is to walk.  This helps with gaining strength as well.  I have been walking, slowly, around my neighborhood. Instead of long strolls in the woods, I am barely circling the block, but the day is still pretty, the air still fresh, and movement still feels good.   When not walking I have been watching videos of others walking. I watched a video of a group of guys hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and it was beautiful.  Today I watched a video of a different guy hiking across Arizona.  That was more fun to me, no snow and a few familiar places.  I miss hiking alone in the woods, I miss mountains and altitude.  Mostly I miss feeling good enough to walk several miles.  But, the more I walk, the more I will be able to walk.  Watching the videos just encourages me for the future.

The other thing keeping me from writing here as much is NaNoWriMo.  Do you know what that is?  November is National Novel Writing Month.  The idea is that people who want to write sign up on this website.  We agree, and do our best to write a certain number of words every day.  At the end of the month, if we have stuck to it, we should have a rough draft of a novel.  I signed up, and today I wrote my first installment. We try to write 1667 words every day, and by the end of the month we will have written 50,000 words.  I create best when writing by hand, and today my hand is sore. Also since I write by hand, I have to count my words, or at least estimate well.   I may have to learn to create while typing.  The idea of NaNoWriMo is to encourage budding writers to put forth the effort, to stick to the writing day after day.  For me this blog was going to do that, but it became easy to forget.  Hopefully the same won't happen this November.

My story is fiction, and that isn't my favorite way to write.  It was when I was younger.  I used to spend hours writing in notebooks, scribbling away fantasy stories or mysteries.  Now I struggle with fiction, perhaps feeling like telling a story is just a waste of time.  I love to read fiction, that isn't
a waste of time, so why do I think this way when I write.  I think it is the classic self defeat mindset of so many wanna be writers.  We may have skill, ideas and determination, but can we continue when the inner mind is telling us what we are doing is stupid, not interesting, and taking time from something actually useful like cooking supper?

After thinking some about it I decided to write the story I find myself daydreaming when I can't sleep.  It may be that no one but me will ever find this story interesting, but that is OK.  I am writing to develop my ability to write, and stick to the process.  If I am the only person that ever reads the story, but I finish the writing, I will consider this a success.  So, what is my story?  It is a story of walking, learning to enjoy nature, and discovering the joy of being in the woods.  So far the greatest plot change has been my character learning to pee in the woods.  This isn't great literature, this is a fun coming of age story with lots of adventure.  Hopefully I will finish this rough draft, and perhaps I will share it.  At any rate, I will have fun!  See you in a month!