So, what a difference two weeks or so can make. Since I last wrote about my plans for NaNoWriMo, I’ve had my work shifts increase in number, been thrust into the lead role for handling the projection equipment at church and had a family member go through a serious accident- all when I was close to burning out anyway. There have definitely been times when trying to just go through all the jobs that need doing now, before November even starts, have felt not only like treading water in the middle of the ocean, waiting to be rescued, but as if I were doing so with the anchor and chain off a battleship lashed around my legs- or at least that is the image that has come most readily to mind.

An anchor about this size is about what I’ve been picturing.

With all that, some of you must be asking yourselves, why would I even consider still going through with NaNoWriMo? In fact, there have been moments when I’ve even asked that of myself- but it’s not about winning for me this year. Don’t get me wrong, if circumstances permit, I’ll still try for the fifty thousand words, but this year the winning certificate is not why I’m doing this. I’m doing this because writing has served as a means of stress relief for me in the past, a means of venting my frustrations without putting somebody else into the line of fire- and right now, I desperately need that. Anything else I get out of this will be a bonus this year.

Now, to get into an account of my writing preparations for November so far. There’s not a vast amount to report- I’ve worked the barest bones of my story, which is largely going to be a sword and sorcery style work of fantasy (and if anybody disputes whether a Christian like myself should be writing fantasy novels, I would refer you to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and in particular C.S. Lewis) and I’ve started work on the main characters and a map that still has a lot of blank space on it, that’s about as far as I’ve got at the moment.