My life gets pretty crazy.

Two kids. A split household. Two small businesses.

Sometimes you can’t see my sink.

Okay, usually you can’t see the sink.

But despite the day-to-day essentials of lunch packing, homework helping, books balancing, order filling, photo taking, and household managing, I know that what is most essential about me must also be nurtured. And that is the writer.

The trouble is, I’m the must-really-focus-and-be-bathed-in-silence kind of writer. I wish I weren’t. I’d love to be a put-on-the-headphones-and-shut-out-the-world type of writer. I’d also like to be able to write in short bursts, say, in between dropping off and picking up for trumpet lessons.

But no, I need to feel my time won’t be disturbed, to settle in. If I get on a roll, then sometimes, if I’m super lucky, I can keep that momentum, gliding through the day slightly above its rushed activities, doing what must be done but still keeping the story whirring in my head. It’s a delicate balance, much like riding a unicycle on a tightrope.

With people tugging at your elbows for a snack.

National Novel Writing Month re-prioritizes my world for 30 days.  I’m supposed to write 50,000 words. I’ve achieved that five times. Last year I only managed 35,000. (But I added moving to a new house and setting up a new studio to the month—priorities didn’t budge.)

All of my novels have started out as NaNoWriMo projects. I don’t draft by the seat of my pants, but using an outline. I always have a direction for my stories, so I’m not writing total blather. While often I end up keeping 15% or less of the November words, they still serve an excellent purpose. Several, in fact:

1. It tells me whether my story idea is one I want to live with for the next year through editing.
2. It gets all the “junk” out. We often reach for familiar story lines and overused character types in our first drafts.
3. It helps me find the “voice.” Slow drafting with breaks in between often means the character will pick up characteristics and mannerisms based on the new experiences and influences around me. Fast drafting helps me keep the voice consistent through the first version.

I never “come down” from the story. I leave my laptop powered up and open to the novel document at ALL times, sitting on the dining room table. Passing it keeps the action fresh in my mind, so when I sit down again, it all starts flowing, as if I’d never stopped.

Usually I take December off from the book. Most years the story isn’t done, as an adult novel is 80,000 words, so I’ll review what I did in November, edit the story line, make notes on changes, and finish out the draft by March. Usually by summer I have a good first draft, revised and rearranged, to start presenting to my critique group.

Stella & Dane, my current project, has been part of an experiment to keep readers involved since I’m writing a prequel to a novel just published last month. I’ve released bits and pieces of it, knowing that those scenes may not end up in the final draft at all, and certainly not in their current state.

Editing them, which is usually forbidden, has slowed me down just enough that I might not make the 50,000. But I’m very deep into this book, and the characters live with me now. And that’s the single best part of NaNoWriMo—immersing myself in a writing world, making it the first thing I do each morning, if only for 30 days.

Remember those commercials, “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?”

Of course you do. You’re just that old.

Other than being a brilliant use of alliteration, rhythm, and outrageous trademark repetition, the old Tootsie Pop ad justified all the silly questions in our lives. It didn’t matter that the old owl only took three licks and bit into the lollipop (Don’t try THAT at home. You’ll break a tooth. Really.) We could investigate ourselves to find the answer to this timeless question, simultaneously wrapping our happy tongues around pure sugar satisfaction.

So what if we’re suckers.

My question today: how many hours does it take to write 10,000 words? And not 10,000 words of gibberish. Real words. Real dialogue. Real story.

See, I was way behind on NaNoWriMo. As in, well, 10,000 words behind. And I had this marvelous day where my parents had been here and just left. So my house was CLEAN! And I’d killed myself catching up on my work before they arrived. And I’d played LOTS with the kids.

I had no guilt. And no chores. And best of all, no kids! (Off with dad.)

And so I set a goal that was rather obscene. 10,000 words in a day. It seemed pie-in-the-sky, unrealistic. I figured I’d fatigue around 3K, the most I’d ever written in one sitting before.

But I knew I could punch out a thousand per hour. I also knew it was like saying you can type 100 words a minute. Sure, maybe for one minute. Or even five. If pushing, maybe fifteen. But could you sustain this level for a long haul?

The answer: yes.

Caveats: I had an outline. A good one. And on Friday, I found a change of direction in voice that I felt crazy passionate about, the sort of outrageous exuberance that leads to lofty goals. I just didn’t have time to implement it.

Until today.

So yes, I wrote 10,042 words today. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo and you’re behind, take heart. It can be done.

But now my fingers hurt and I’m hungry. And my butt may be permanently shaped like my chair.

I think I deserve a Tootsie Pop. How many licks will it take to get to the center of chewy chocolatey goodness?

The world may never know.

The blank page stared at me like a great ghostly eye.

I might have punched it in the eye, had it not been a $600 Apple Cinema monitor. The apparition element was all my own.

But there was a reason for the empty screen. I had begun my fourth venture into National Novel Writing Month, pledging to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

And I had nuthin’.

All the novels from the previous years lined up inside my head. All were good books, a literary piece, a women’s fiction, and a middle grade low fantasy. I’d finished them all in the late winter after each NaNoWriMo, gone through peer critiques and rewrites, and felt pleased with the end results. One had won a contest. The latest was still being considered for representation by an agent.

But still, a lot of hours, a lot of my life, and a huge chunk of my energy and emotion had gone into them. And for what exactly? A file lying resident on a hard drive.

The cursor blinked quietly, ever patient. I started at the malevolent screen, empty, mocking.

Had I neglected my kids to do this? My business? Was the tradeoff worth the end result?

I leaned back in my chair, thinking maybe I wouldn’t participate this year. Or, sign up, hang out with the friends I’d made through NaNoWriMo and type gaily here and there, but not push to finish.

Then, somewhere, far back in my reptilian brain, I remembered a moment, a gesture, a bit of conversation, a big laugh, and then a character came full blown, and I placed her in a scene. Then her motivations came tumbling out, what she’d do under pressure, mixed in with a setting, a chance opportunity, and suddenly, I had an idea for a novel.

For any of us who create art in all its forms, what we do is not a choice, time wasted, or moments lost. It’s who we are, what makes us get up in the morning, and hopefully, if we’re really really good, really really perserverant, AND really really lucky, one day we will break out, get our art before others, and someone else will understand and connect with what we’ve done.

We’re 20 days into the race for 50,000 words. I hit 30K last night. I’m slightly off pace, but in good shape to finish on the 30th. During the same 20 days, I’ve done 30 photo shoots, created seven new holiday card designs, printed a heck of a lot of pictures, and written an article for About.com.

AND cleaned my daughter’s bedroom, helped with homework, had kids over for playdates, and baked at least six dozen cookies.

I think I’m going to get it all done.

As long as I don’t sleep.

Well, National Novel Writing Month is over! Whew! I finished the 50K by writing random bits about my main character’s parents. It was drudgery, and I will delete it all as soon as I open the Jinnie Wishmaker file again, but for now–I’m READING! And watching movies! And doing all the other things I mostly gave up during November.

One of the most fun things that happened during this month’s NaNoWriMo is that the fiction editor from About.com ran an article I wrote as well as my pictures from our “Nano in Nature” event where some of us crazy novelists hiked to a waterfall to work on our books. I am pleased how the text and photo series turned out!

I just finished Higher Power of Lucky and I really did love it in the end. I also got through The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe (Emily is reading it and I wanted to see what she’d be in for since the whole Golden Compass controversy erupted via emails. I might take on the Golden Compass itself soon, but I’m not terribly interested in fantasy and Emily isn’t asking for it.) I’m about halfway through the first of the Children of the Lamp series and having fun seeing how PB Kerr has fleshed out the genie mythology in different ways than I did.

I’ll take December off from writing and hit the editing seriously in January. I’ve committed (and should be committed) to submitting the first 30 pages of Jinnie Wishmaker to my Novel-in-Progress critique group mid-January, and I’m not sure the first couple chapters move as speedily as they should. This is why I’m trying to work through as many kid books as I can. To learn!

I’ve opened up comments for this post, so if you want to suggest a kid’s book for me to read this month, do so! I can read one a day easily, and I’m making weekly sojourns to the library! Thank you!

Sometimes I look up from my computer (which is rare these days, between National Novel Writing Month and holiday portraits) and wonder how in the world I ended up writing a middle grade novel.

But last night, I finished Jinnie Wishmaker! I’m sitting at 45,000 words at the moment, just shy of the goal of 50K, and still in shock that I wrote an entire book in 23 days! (Now I have to come up with 5,000 words of filler to finish the contest.)

I can’t tell you how happy I am with the story, though. It’s everything I wanted–the magic of Matilda, the insight of Summer of the Swans, the happy ending of Meet the Robinson’s.

And probably best of all, tonight Emily was reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe for her nightly 20 minutes of homework. After a while she called me into the room. “Mama, you have to read this!”

She showed me page 13, which read

[He told] about long hunting parties after the milk-white Stag who could give you wishes if you caught him.

 ”Just like your book!” she said. “It grants wishes!”

It’s all new to her, the complex stories, the magic, the characters. She was so excited to make the connection between this book and mine, as if one validated the other.

Some things are eternal. The awe in children when they read a story that captivates them. The joy in a shared interest, a mutual love of something that makes you both thrum with happiness.

I always thought those grand literary novels were the pinnacle of writing, the ultimate accomplishment.

But maybe it’s all important. Late great works that appeal to our wisdom AND early magical stories that keep us imagining a new and different world that teaches us more about our own.

Today in the mail came two very important postcards.

Remember when I shipped my non-fiction book contest entry with the wrong amount of postage?

The postcards were from the contest noting that both my manuscripts had arrived safely. No one noticed that I used the wrong type of label!

Whew!

NOW we can move on to the luck of actually becoming a finalist (one step at a time, one step at a time.)

You can read an excerpt of the lucky nonfiction book here.

I am 12,000 words into Jinnie Wishmaker, my NaNo novel for 9-12 year olds. It’s going well, but I’m still not ready to put up an excerpt. I’ve been reading The Higher Power of Lucky, though, and it is a very fun book. I thought MY book was a little controversial by starting off with the birth of a baby deer, but THAT book, written for fifth-graders, starts out with the little girl eavesdropping on a 12-step meeting where a man describes his exploits as a drunk! It uses the word scrotum!

It won a Newbery, so I suppose mine is okay.

I tell you what, if you’re very curious, I’ll send you the first chapter of Jinnie Wishmaker via email. Just write me. Read it to your kids, if you have the right age. They will tell it like it is–boring, interesting, wonderful, or flat out awful. I can take it!

I really can’t believe it.

I mean, it makes sense. I’m a children’s photographer. I used to write kids’ textbooks. I taught school for five years.

But, gosh, I’m the purveyor of darkness–seamy literary-drenched tales of disaster and the black nature of humanity.

Maybe that’s what led to this sudden and complete reversal.

It happened on Day Three of NaNoWriMo (if you are unfamiliar, it’s the crazy race to write 50,000 words of a new novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30.) I’d been going along, writing a seriously heavy story about a group of frustrated art students trying to figure out how to make their work stand out. It was called, and yeah, it doesn’t get much darker, The Suicide School, because they were researching the connection between artists who killed themselves and the resulting success of their art.

I was only a couple thousand words in, and it was going well enough. But Friday night, the girls and I rented Matilda, based on the book by Roald Dahl (His Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of my absolute favorite stories.)

At the end of the movie, when Matilda finds a family who loves her, and no longer needs her telekinetic powers to exact revenge upon evil adults, I thought–this is what I want to do. I want to write something magical and fun and bright and with the most outrageously happy ending ever.

As I got the girls ready for bed, I knew exactly what I would write. A story about a girl who could grant wishes. I quickly searched on Amazon for how overused the idea is and didn’t find an overwhelming amount. One cute series for very young readers,  Little Genie  by Miranda Jones, is about kids who find a traditional genie in a lamp. Another very clever looking fantasy series by PB Kerr for older children, called Children of the Lamp, is about twin djinn who are fulfilling their destiny as more historically correct genies, not so much the Aladdin variety. Neither series worries me too much. Mine is very much a stand-alone book (although an idea for a series DID sort of pop into my head today…I’ll remain silent until I actually finish ONE) and written in a very different style.

It’s called Jinnie Wishmaker. She ten years old and the book is geared for the 9-12 set. So far it passes muster with Emily, but I’m not ready to put up excerpts or even talk too much about the plot. It’s too new, too tender, and I’m terrified about what I’ve done with my dark literary self!

But I’m happy, so I roll with it.