Wrapping Up NanoWriMo & Looking Ahead

🤝 RE: DECEMBER READINGS! 🤝

If you booked with me for a reading in December, please expect an email from me on Monday or Tuesday of next week to check in on the topic that you shared while booking, as well as some additional things to think about before our session! Yes, it might feel like homework, but it’s for your own good! 😉 I’m really psyched to work with you!

If you didn’t book in December, but are still interested in getting a reading…

🗣 SPEND 23 MINUTES on 2023! 🗣

Interested to know what next year has in store for you through the lens of numerology and the tarot? Let’s spend a quick 23 minutes together and figure it out!

On December 16, I’ll be releasing an episode of SITS and information about booking a 23-Minute Mini Session, to be scheduled in the first week of January.

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Hey swimmers, guess what?

I DID IT! I HIT 50K WORDS IN 30 DAYS! 🥳🤘🏼⚡️✨😭

What a ride! What a truly nutty way to create! What a test of perseverance!

When I first decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month, I wanted to jumpstart the work on a novel that’s been floating around in my brain for years. Truly, years. And that’s all it would have ever been—a start—because the 50K word goal is still about 30-40K short of what most novels are today. My wife assured me that this was okay, and perhaps even preferable, saying that all I had to do was just start getting words on a page, so that by the end of the month, I’d know whether or not the idea was viable.

Well, here on December 2nd, I am very proud to say that not only do I think the story is viable, but that I’m actually excited about writing the rest! In my book (pun intended), that’s a huge win! 🤩🤩🤩

More than that, I’d also like to reflect on some additional points:

I do think that creating a container for deep and focused work is a great way to get through some of the trickier steps about starting and continuing work on a creative project. NanoWriMo is an intense goal, and while I’m sure I’ll do it again, it’s not a format that I’m going to be adopting year round. I have a lot of rewriting to do, and this project is important to me, so I’m excited to slow down and spend some time with it now. BUT, if you’re someone who takes a really long time to get started, or who tends to write & edit & rewrite & never really makes any forward progress, I would challenge you to create a smaller version of Nano for yourself, and see what you can do if you just shut your critic brain down, and write.

I realized halfway through that I might be using this challenge to dive headfirst into another project, in hopes of curtailing any grief, or that “post-show letdown,” after my book release. Almost every creative project I’ve ever worked on has overlapped with another, or others, so I want to be clear that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting started on something else so soon after the ending of a big project! It’s just a reflection that I’m curious about, and a good opportunity to check in with myself and my body, and see where I might be holding onto some upset around my book being out in the world, and now having to truly move on to the next.

Because so much of the artistic process happens alone, and in the proverbial dark, it’s so important to celebrate all of the little wins along the way! I have a really hard time resting in moments of triumph. Maybe you can relate? Like, we work so hard to achieve goals, successes, milestones or markers, whatever you call them, and then once we hit them, what then? This last month, I celebrated a little bit every day. I pepped myself up by announcing daily word counts on the Nano website, and with my writer friends! I accepted every single little digital badge that was given along the way! I tried not to get too upset over the 3 whole days that I took off all month 😉, and I planned a really exciting evening with my pals and my wife on the night of the 30th to toast to my success. Things might not be slowing down at all—Happy Holidays??? How is it December???—but I am really relishing in this, and every, part of the process because if you don’t celebrate your own wins, so much can feel like it slips by with little to no fanfare.

After a deserved break—and maybe a hand and wrist massage!—I’m going to start reworking the beginning, as well as continuing the work to get to a full first draft. While I was feeling burned out by the end of the month, I’m also incredibly motivated to keep going! And don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted, of course! 😊

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who supported my work, commented, emailed, texted, and sent a carrier pigeon my way this month. I really couldn’t have done it without the accountability and love of my community. My cup is incredibly full!

Wherever this finds you in your own Nano journey, or other creative process, please know that I am sending you love, stamina, perseverance, TONS OF SELF-CONFIDENCE, and a few muses, too. We got this!

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A SASSY SNIPPET 👀

** In case you need a refresher or are new here (hi!), my main character Mol writes a blog about her sexual escapades in NYC. This excerpt is from one of her blog entries, and therefore written in first person! **

I could lead a walking tour of all of the places I’ve cried in New York City.I’d lead it for free, of course—accessibility is sexy—but would accept donations. You know, for emotional damages. A therapy fund, even.The tour would start outside the Waverly Diner on 6th Avenue, where I ended up after a night out traipsing around the West Village on a drinking tour of iconic lesbian bars. I was new to the city, and somewhat new to being absolutely trashed in public, so when the girl I’d been dancing with all night invited me for a tuna melt at the diner, and then ditched me for another party somewhere in Brooklyn, I sobbed outside until Jenna called me a car home. And yes, of course there’s a tuna melt x lesbian joke in there somewhere, but let’s not spend too much time trying to make it, okay?After the Waverly, the tour would meander uptown, past the hole-in-the-wall wine bar in the East 20s, where I first learned that Jenna would be moving out. Then, we’ve move to that intersection of Madison Avenue and 33rd, where I threw up outside of the window of a moving cab, tears streaming down my face from sheer embarrassment. And then finally, we’d end at the 47-50th Sts—Rockefeller Center subway station, otherwise known as the location of my extremely tearful and heinously public break-up with Tanner.Tanner Thomas, Boy Wonder.

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Until next time, just keep swimming! xx