NaNoWriMo Thanksgivingness: Reflections on a Certain Thursday in the USA
NaNoWriMo is a great big global family so let’s go around the table and say what we’re thankful for. I’ll start. I’m thankful for you reading this. I’m thankful for the amazing Municipal Liaisons, the @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter round the clock, and the NaNoWriMo staff who make all this magic possible.
I’m thankful for being a writer and for how it feels to write, like rightness and home and a glorious way to flail around in my weirdness. It feels like instinct and purpose, how kitties know they should stalk things and hatchling turtles rush-waddle to the sea.
It’s a gently padded pillow fort after battling the horror of grocery store and did I touch my face and damnitalltohell still no Lysol?!? And the trauma-ish of moving through your city that’s been giving off that whiff of apocalypse.
I’m thankful that being a writer means I can travel widely while sheltering in place. In my world I’m the only one on the plane and there are plenty of blankets. Or better yet the clean blip of teleportation far away from my current Friendsgiving: that’s me, the cat and a cute stuffed monster in a plaid hat I got at a Loch Ness gift shop. I am a happy little god, to quote Karima Cammell of Castle in the Air Studio and the NaNo board, and I create at my whim.
I am thankful that it still feels good if not better than ever to write, to belch out these wild mixed up feelings.
Does it come out in my writing? What are you talking about — I was always writing the sheroic journey of a mad scientist battling the Covidian scourge from Planet 19. In my powerful hands, world destruction feels doable, even a bit adorable.
I am thankful for how radiant I am as I write this in two-day-old pajamas with grey roots lapping at my temples. I’m thankful that I make the time to write and make it a priority. An ex inappropriately checked in with me the other day filled with loneliness and longing. I am thankful that NaNo is a healthy place to channel these feelings, hint hint. I am thankful that all the feels haven’t paralyzed me into not writing. I am thankful that I got through yesterday and much of today.
I’m thankful that a welcoming, global virtual writing arts community exists, that it started in 1999 and it’s grown and grown to the point that you and I are WriMo-ing. I’m thankful to be on the NaNo board to help steward this special nonprofit into the future. I’m thankful that writing is personal but this community is shared.
I’m thankful that writing is personal but this community is shared.
I’m thankful that though Thanksgiving in the USA may look really different this year, that it may feel like a moth-eaten sweater and we might be focusing on the holes, there is a place where you and I belong, a place to process the parts of life that are sweet like candied yams, and the parts that are that one uncle who likes schnapps and Tucker Carlson and not in that order. That outlet is NaNoWriMo, proud home of maniacs doing word sprints before the turducken goes in the oven.
We may not be with everyone we love this year, but we’ve got each other, dear WriMos. This is Bleep Bloop from Planet 19 wishing you an adequate Thursday.
Stephanie
❤ NaNoWriMo Board Member since 2019, participant since 2011 ❤
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