This November

I am glad I registered two weeks in advance because it allows me to get all the boring stuff out of the way. Such as stocking the freezer with ready-to-eat stuff so that I don't have to waste precious time planning and cooking meals. One of the pep-talks I just read asks the writer to find a 'chip on her shoulder' which will not allow her a moment of peace till the shitty 50,000 word first draft is done. While I can think of a zillion things that would qualify as a 'chip', I ask myself why do I need something negative to egg me on something that I wanted to do all my life anyway? In fact, this is really the ONLY thing I really ever wanted to do. Everything else was either optional or in someway deemed as feeding that secret ambition. It just came back to me that for both my tenth and 12th standard board exams I actually wrote stories for the composition assignment. Who does that? When I got laid off, the first thing that came to my mind, even through the funk of shock and outrage was: finally I am free to do what I really want to do. This is by far the best thing that has happened to me. Honestly. But 50,000 words, a 15-month old baby and two years of mounting frustration later, I am only that close to fulfilling my dream. It seems that it is not enough to get 50,000 words on paper. It's more important that it make perfect narrative sense. That's a really tough call. But this November, I will give it that final "Do or Die" shot. I believe that the 50,000 words I have written so far are a stepping stone to something greater. In other words, they are not a 'waste' even though I might not be able to use them in this novel. Besides, as some people say, at the end of one's life, one never regrets not having spent more time at the office. I just don't want to get to the end of my life regretting that I didn't give this seemingly ridiculous novel writing business a fighting chance.

P.S The real reason why I am sitting up so late at night writing this blog is that my inner demons won't let me sleep. Is it just a coincidence that right at this moment, in another part of the world, some people are enthusiastically celebrating the slaying of another demon by an all-powerful goddess?