NaNoWriMo (or rather, the month Brittany decides to undergo massive amounts of stress and sleepless nights and consume far more caffeine than the average human body should legally contain)

"The most regretful people on earth
are those who felt the call to creative work,
who felt their own creative power restive and uprising,
and gave to it neither power nor time.”

                                                       -----Excerpt from Mary Oliver's essay "Of Power and Time"

Ever since graduation, I've found I no longer have an affinity for playing the piano, or writing, or drinking coffee, or eating sweet things, or reading... or doing much of anything I used to enjoy. Why? Well, it's a mixture of things, and this is a blog, not a diary. Sorry I'm not an angsty hormonal teenager people.

"But Brittany, aren't you technically writing right now?"

I've written a lot of blogposts, 60% of which you will never read because I deleted them into the netherworld of Oblivion. Also, I don't categorize blogging with writing, or at least the way I blog (because plenty of my friends have blogs, and their writing is far more focused and "writer worthy").

So... where am I going with this? Well, long story short I stumbled across this contest called "NaNoWriMo" (stands for National November Writing Month) and basically, during the entire month of November, I will be attempting to start and finish a novel.

Can I do it? Heck, I don't know. I already have a sort of story in my head, and if I don't manage to change my mind yet again in the next couple of days it's probably going to be fairly nonsensical (if my story doesn't contain dragons in some way, shape or form, so help me. I will punch myself in the neck). Honestly, I don't even know if it's going to be worthy enough to brag about when November comes to a close. At this point, because of how long it's been since I've managed to write anything, I'd rather have written a crappy 50,000 word story then have written nothing at all.

So what I want to tell you other "artists" or "writers of words" or "creators of crafts", if you haven't created anything for a good long while, and are legitimately bothered by this fact day in and day out, do something about it. You're the only one preventing yourself from doing what you love to do. Sometimes words flow through your mind like electrical currents, and other times it's more like an electrical shortage. Figure out what helps words flow better, like listening to music, or napping. Naps are a big help. Especially when you feel you can't write anything and want to sob into the night.

Do what you love people, you other awesome creators you.

[Also, I'd like to thank my friend Bethany Fonda for sharing that quote from Mary Oliver with me when I saw her during homecoming weekend at Houghton College. Thanks lady dude! For you people who don't know, she's a pretty cool person who writes music and stuff, and you should totally check out her website by clicking here.]