Or maybe one’s birthday is an ideal time to reflect upon the natural ending of things, as well as the things you want to accomplish before your own end time, and more importantly, the barriers, both real and imaginary, that stand in your way.
And I am most definitely not a material girl.
Honestly, I’ve never really been into “stuff”; not since I became an adult and especially not since I became an environmentalist.
Or a writer, for that matter, since this means I have a never-ending stream of personally curated entertainment at the ready inside my head at all times.
Although Sag loves the thrill of a new project or friendship, you don’t always finish what you start. Work on keeping your promises and commitments.
(Source: http://astrostyle.com/sagittarius, among many others.)
I was born under the astrological sign of Sagittarius. People of this sign are said to highly gregarious, to have an incurable wanderlust, and also to be notoriously distractible – to the point that they rarely complete what they start.
Even though I’ve never felt I embodied any of these hallmark Sagittarian traits, the presence of the last one in the above list has always caused me some distress.
The Daintree Rainforest, a tropical rainforest and UNESCO World Heritage Site along the coast of Queensland, Australia.
That is, not after I overcame my last-minute fervor to do lots of writing while in Australia – to write during as much of the flight as I remained awake for; to even finish my novel while abroad, if possible, and return home like a conquering hero.
In preparation for this, I scanned and PDF’ed an entire chapter of a reference book (since my WIP is historical fiction and thus research-dependant).
I also downloaded Evernote on both my iPad and phone so that I’d have two methods of inputting my deathless prose that would automatically sync as well as keep a backup in the cloud.
Kangaroos, here I come!
A personal soundtrack of sorts, curated by yours truly.
November is an important month for me. Why, you may ask. Is it because of NaNoWriMo?
Hell no. I already waxed poetic on my feelings about NaNo (and Daylight Savings Time too, for that matter last November).
Is it because my birthday is in November?
We’re getting warmer.
I’m having a “working summer” this year. This isn’t unlike how I often have “working weekends”, during which I get caught up on all the errands, chores, and other adult-life necessaries I didn’t do during the week because I was busy writing.
Full-time jobs are hell on both writing time and fun, relaxing weekend time, though I guess we all need to suffer a bit for our art.
But I’ve currently got some BIG tasks that need doing.
Hence the working summer.
At around 2:00am this morning, I turned officially 35 years old, thus entering, as someone at work (helpfully!) pointed out, whole new age demographic on surveys.
In my mind, though, it actually happened about six months ago, back in June.
I always make the point of pre-aging myself. This is both to smooth the transition from one year to the next and to prevent subsequently mis-aging my myself, similar to how people often continue to write the old year for months after New Year’s.
Today is also the day I’m supposed to have the draft of my novel-in-progress completed.
That, on the other hand, didn’t happen.
I’ve already decided to forgive myself for that. It was a self-imposed deadline in any case, so the only person I’m really letting down is myself. But I refuse to feel let down.
In writing, as in all aspects of life, one only gets out of it what s/he’s put in. I can honestly say I’ve put a lot of effort and heart into my WIP, and have worked away on it, if not speedily, than with dogged consistency. I’ve been no slouch, so if it’s going to take me longer than I thought to get ‘er done, well, such is life.
The only truly downside is that I’d originally planned to share my novel’s opening on my birthday.
I kind of hate November.First of all, Movember? A very worthwhile cause, but moustaches are creepy.
And the end of Daylight Savings Time? I despise Daylight Savings Time, both the start of it and the end of it, for I find mucking with the time twice a year very jarring to my circadian rhythm.
My birthday is in November, on the Scorpio-Sagittarius cusp. I quite like my birthday but resent having my birthday month tainted by icky ‘staches and disruptions to my sleep.
And then there’s NaNoWriMo….
Unlike my fully realized feelings on Movember, DST, and my birthday, I’ve yet to work out how I feel about National Novel Writing Month.
For one thing, I’ve never done it. Nor am I doing it this year. Nor am I even sure I want to someday.
Let me re-phrase that last thought: I feel like I do want to do it someday, but I’m not sure if that’s because I relish the challenge it offers or because I feel like I should want to since it’s such a renowned event in the writing community.
A Frame Around Infinity 