I’ve tried this before, and I’m pretty sure I petered out after a week or less, but I’m going to try again to write every day for the month of November. It is of course, Nanowrimo or National Novel Writing Month. I’m not trying to write a novel, I just want to get back into the habit of writing regularly. It’s been months since I last wrote anything, I miss it. Still, I don’t make the time to write so this is me putting it out to the universe or the blogosphere that I intend to write again.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop, something I’ve wanted to do since its inception. It was an amazing experience and I highly recommend it if you want to start writing, or get back into writing. The roster was amazing and included Leighann Lord, Cathy Guisewite, Dion Flynn, Adriana Trigiani, Katrina Kittle, W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, and Laraine Newman. All of the keynotes and presentations were beyond inspiring. Each one filled me with renewed motivation to not only write for my blog again, but to finally finish my book and start on some other projects.

Problem is, I never have enough time. I make my writing the least of all my priorities and if I learned anything from my trip to Dayton it’s that I need to make my writing a priority again.

That’s my intention.

Thankfully, I have plenty to write about. I chose to drive to Dayton because flights were so expensive. It took me 4 days total – 2 days there, 2 days back. I stopped in Rockford, IL so I didn’t have to drive in the dark. Because I had a car I was free to do a little sight seeing and took a tour down memory lane. I spent a day in Cincinnati visiting the places where I spent much of my youth while visiting my grandparents. I stopped by the cemetery in Kentucky to visit their graves and tried to visit the house they lived in when I visited in the 70s.

Nothing worked out like I hoped it would, and yet all of it provides a foundation for a funny story – if I can get it on paper – or the internet. Spending so much time behind the wheel gave me plenty of time to think about what I wanted to write, I just needed to sit down and actually write it out.

Upon my return from Dayton I took another road trip to the north shore on Lake Superior. The purpose of that trip was to write, but I ended up working, and streaming Ghosts. OMG why didn’t anyone tell me how funny that show is? I binged the US version – the entire series. I thought about writing between episodes.

So now here we are, or here I am. It’s November 1st, the beginning of Nanowrimo and I’m going to write 1700 words each day, and not including the words I have to write for work. I’m currently at 505.

Nanowrimo is about writing a 50000 word novel in 30 days. That breaks down to 1667 words per day. If I shoot for 1700 that gives me a little wiggle room when I don’t want or can’t write on a given day.

OMG it’s so much harder than I remember to write 1700 words!! Usually I have no trouble writing that many words. In fact usually I write too much. Most of it is rambling, not a lot of it makes sense to anyone but me, but I can fill a page with words. Now it’s much more difficult. Not because I don’t have the words, but because there are so many distractions. The cat just walked across my desk in front of the middle monitor. She is has just stepped on the keyboard causing all kinds of mayhem and is now sitting on the back of my chair purring loudly in my right ear. While all that was going on I got three text messages – one from work, one letting me know my Rx is ready and one from my ex husband letting me know I can fuck myself. See, some things never change!

There are so many distractions these days – it’s  the midterms, Elon Musk just purchased Twitter – making it a much better place in my opinion because pedantic celebrities are showing themselves out and 50% of the people are freaking out. Why I am not so sure. Someone told me yesterday it was now a Russian controlled platform, while someone else said it belonged to the Nazis.

Crazy times we live in.

In 9 days the world will be in complete chaos or the election is rigged.

I’ll come to regret typing those words since someone will misconstrue them, but I don’t really care. Everyone I was afraid was going to unfriend me has unfriended me so I don’t really have anything left to lose. There’s something wonderfully liberating about being unfriended. A handful of people – some I really adore – prevented me from speaking my truth. Ugh, that sounds so schmaltzy, but it’s true. I’ve held my tongue for so long because I know I don’t think the same way they or believe in the same things they do. I believe my beliefs are the correct one – though who really knows since they are all subjective – and that theirs are poppycock, but they are the majority, or at least the loudest ones on the internet (this isn’t an issue in real life).

The point is, I don’t care what people think of the things I type anymore. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you don’t like it and you are unable to stop reading it, you can leave me a nasty comment if it makes you feel better. You’re not likely to change my mind, though I have yet had anyone actually try to be persuasive and change my mind. It can be done, I can absolutely be persuaded to change my thinking. It just doesn’t happen because you call me names, suggest I am a Nazi or tell me I am siding with Russians. It only works when you can back your argument up with sound logic. I’m still waiting.

1035! Almost there!!

I’m writing all of this out so I have a road map of what I plan on talking about in the next 30 days, so you – my lovely reader – know what to expect, and because I need to fill this page up with so many words.

Oh, I forgot to mention the wonderful people I’ve been hanging around with the last few weeks. I knew no one at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, but was lucky enough to meet many amazingly funny women.

Oh, I tried Cincinnati chili so you don’t have to. If you’ve heard of it, you know. Cincinnati chili is chili, kind of a sweet chili with no beans, onions, etc unless you ask for them. The chili sits on top of spaghetti noodles for reasons only those in Cincinnati understand. It’s got gobs of cheese on top of the chili and comes with exactly 7 oyster crackers.

I also ate at Frisch’s Big Boy – boy is there a story behind that selfie!

I just need 500 more words. Ugh, this is challenging. Stay tuned to read these stories over the next 30 days. Obviously I will have to come up with more than just these stories, this list will only get us to the end of the week. Speaking of distractions I just got a notification that we’ve been pronouncing Adele’s name wrong and it’s taking all my willpower to stay here and finish these last few hundred words. How else is there to possibly pronounce it? ‘Adeele’? ‘Adeley’? ‘Aydel’? It’s like Sade all over again – still not sure I’m pronouncing her name correctly but remember how overly confident some of us were back in the 90s when we declared it was pronounced ‘Sharday’?

It was a simpler time back then. No social media to tell you how wrong you are and while you’re at it jump off a bridge.

That’s going to be a theme in the next 30 days. I’ve had enough of the mean people on the internet. I’ve spent a long time scrolling past some of the most inane, hurtful, mean spirited, cruel, and just downright ugly sentiments from people who only spew them because they think their posse will back them up. It’s middle school mean girls and it was awful then, and is still awful now. It’s bullying – plain and simple – and I’ve had enough of it. I’ll be writing several times  – probably after the results of the midterm elections come in – about this topic because I think it’s important and because I think social media has been hugely harmful to all of us, but especially the kids.

I don’t know if we can turn back time and undo the harm caused by social media, but I hope we can steer away from it. There are so many better ways to spend time than doom scrolling through a bunch of people complaining. And that’s really all it is, complaining. Lord knows I do my share of complaining – see the comment about my ex husband at the top of the fold, but even I have gotten away and focus now on more positive things.

I hope you’ll follow along as I attempt to write 1700 words everyday. I promise they won’t always be this challenging to set forth or to read. I will come to the table with some funny stories, and I hope some ideas that make you scratch your head. Above all I want to entertain you, since I already amuse myself. Feel free to read some of my older, much funnier stuff – there’s over 1000 posts! Not all of them are funny. Some are only funny to some people, but there are a few gems in there like this one  – How Did We Survive?, or this one about blog awards – remember blog awards? Oh how I miss the glory days of blogging. I don’t think we’ll ever strike that kind of magic again – most of the really good ones are no longer blogging preferring Facebook or Twitter to actually blogging. I get it, but I miss it.

Ha!!! 1710 words!!