Unexpected NaNoWriMo

It's been almost a year since I've written anything. Ten months, to be more exact. I can tell you exactly what happened to cause this long block, and it is a sad story familiar to all aspiring professional fiction writers: rejection by an agent. I'm not talking about the form-letter variety of rejection, either, which is still painful, but at least you can assume they just misread your query letter and thus accidentally failed to notice your obvious brilliance. No, this was the actual I-read-your-work-and-didn't-like-it variety of rejection. Complete with being actually laughed at. Oh, yes.

Now, I realize I have some trouble with rejection and criticism. I mean, perhaps even more than the average amount. I've been working on that for years, because, frankly, one cannot improve as a writer without being able to constructively take and use criticism. One can't improve at anything without that ability, really. Still, this was the death blow to a three-year project, which I was and still am extremely emotionally attached to, and it stung.

On top of that, I found myself kind of at the end of my journey with fanfiction. I wasn't a "Big Name Fan" exactly, but I'd gotten a fair amount of recognition for my most recent amateur fan works, and in that sense, I felt a bit like I'd accomplished what I could on that score. On top of that, my frustration with being tied to other writers' worlds, and to whatever they chose to do with those worlds and the people in them, had finally reached the breaking point. I wanted my own characters and my own world that I could have complete control over. I wanted something that would be truly mine, both creatively and legally.

Still, between losing fandom and the harsh realities of professional publishing, I got knocked off my feet a bit. I forgot what I really write for. Not money, not publication. I write for myself, and to entertain. I chose fanfiction originally because I could accomplish both of those goals, and also because, ironically, there is in fact a lot more freedom to write what you really want to write there. You aren't bound by the glacial speed of the publishing industries notions of what people "want to read."

So yesterday--November 1st--on the spur of the moment around ten a.m., I decided, what the hell! Let's do NaNoWriMo! I had no solid plans in place, but I had a handful of ideas I'd been tossing around and doing nothing with. So I picked one. And, yesterday, for the first time in ten months, I wrote again. And it felt great.

And thus, here I am: yet another writer, blogging into the void. And posting these little puppies:

5126 / 50000 words. 10% done!