Dad

     "I want to buy a car," Dad says. He is sprawled out on his easy chair at the assisted living house, barely able to keep his eyes open. He is tired. His color is ghastly-- like the color of rotting leaves after a heavy rain. I don't even know how he is still alive.

     "It's hard to get anywhere without a car," Dad says.

     I think to myself I don't blame him. If I could, I would have driven both of us out of his current life years ago.

     Dammit.

NaNoWriMo

     From a young age, I fancied myself a writer.  I wrote my first poem in fifth grade.  I was hooked.

     I had the makings of a writer long before I discovered that I could have an audience.  I was a somewhat quiet child who needed alone time with my books.  I liked books and the outdoors and animals-- things I still love today.  I was not terribly social.  I had acquaintances of all ages but very few friends.  I didn't fit in with the more typical kids in my school classes.  Later, I drank and did street drugs to the point of oblivion.  And still later, I found that writers too-- even frustrated writers-- do recovery.  I did some poetry open mics, got published in over fifty litmags and zines-- many of them more than once, got stuff accepted into three anthologies.

     I kept talking about the novel that I was going to write.  I didn't write it.  I could write poetry after a fashion, churn out essays and a few bad cartoons [which got published, go figure] and some short stories.  But I could not think of what to write in the novel.  I started blogging instead.

     This year, I decided to do NaNoWriMo.  Unfortunately, I made this decision on November 13th.  I did not sign up at the website.  I decided that since I started late, I would end on December 13th rather than December 1st.  And I am writing.  I surpassed the 10K [words] mark and I have 40K [words] to go.  On December 13th, I hope to have a first draft of a novel that will not be putrid.  Rather than striving for the elusive bestseller, I set my goal to write the novel that will not cause everyone to run screaming from the room with burning eyes and queasy guts.

     It's working.

sapphoq on life