The official blog of Michelle Tuckett, word ninja.

Tonight has been interesting. You know, the way a hurricane warning is interesting. If I lived where there were hurricane warnings, that might be a more apt metaphor – or is it a simile?

I’ll figure it out tomorrow. For now, let’s just assume I know what I’m doing.

Because it has come to my attention that I really really don’t.

I came home from work positively brimming with ideas for what to post today – in fact, I was worried I’d have a hard time choosing which happy tale to tell or which snippet of info or whatever to start with. I can’t remember because it all got swallowed up by a revelation of well… hurricane proportions (see what I did there?). I sat at my desk and started in on my usual writing rituals. I like to start with a quick journal entry written with one of my fountain pens, just to lubricate my mind and clear out some of the junk lying around in my thoughts. As I wrote, I started to look around my life a little.

At the basket of laundry to be put away.

And my closet in desperate need of an audit because I’ve lost weight.

At the fact that I need to reorganize my workout schedule to accommodate writing, the cooking I need to do to keep myself fed for the week.

At the fact I need to schedule a late Christmas breakfast with my dad still and the day is getting away from me.

Then The Voice chimed in – the one that sounds like me when I try to talk sense into someone. You know, it said, that everything you do will need to be done a little differently in just a few days when you start writing for a year.

Yeah.

You’re also going to try and keep up with two blogs.

Uh-huh.

When you’ve never successfully kept up with one – not really. 

Yeah, I know.

It’s all going to be a little different, and you’re not a fan of different. Are you sure you can handle it?

I began to have an itchy unsure feeling, like when you’re getting ready to introduce a new kitten to the established pets. It’s going to be disruptive. And sharp. I imagined all the tasks in my life arching their backs and hissing.

That’s when I decided to take a break.

The fact is: of course I don’t know for sure if I can handle it, but that’s kind of the whole idea. Years ago when I wrote my first NaNoWriMo novel, I wasn’t sure I could do that either. But I knew I would anyway. And I did, if only just by the skin of my sanity.

The Voice has a point though – everything in my life is going to have to shift over a few inches. Some things will just need to be gotten rid of all together (facebook games, anyone?), others will need to be made less time consuming. And that’s the beauty of the difficulty, the whole point of this exercise is to get through it – to make it past the impossible and create a new standard for what is possible.

At least I think that’s what I had in mind.

Because right now, the only things I’m sure of is that it’s late, and that on January first I will start the first of twelve novels. And I will keep up with two blogs.

It’s going to be a new life, one made around writing. Am I ready?

Hell, no.

But I’m doing it anyway.