With several friends starting to write the 50,000 word November novel today, I’m feeling lost and empty. Two years ago, I wrote one and thrived on almost every minute of letting my muse go wild.

Two years ago yesterday, while my husband and I were driving back to Chicago from our daughter’s out of state, I settled on names for my main characters–Sophie and Sam. Those names, and the fact that my husband was facing a possible cancer, were all I had in mind before I started writing. And, thirty days later, that info had morphed into fiction and a 50,000 word novel.

My husband and I were driving back from our daughter’s again this year, so why wasn’t I thinking up characters’ names to get me started?

Simple. I have other projects I must finish first, one of which is editing and revising Sophie and Sam. And it’s easy for me to load myself up with goodies only to find that my head takes on more than my body wants to do. Does this sound like aging?

But I’ll be here to support my writing friends. I know the endorphin surge when characters, feelings, and events show up raw on the page, unbidden.

Like my opening of Sophie and Sam:

Chapter 1    

Not again, Sophie screamed to herself. She simply could not and did not want to be the loyal wife to cancer again. Sitting in her study, the morning sun beaming on her collection of crystal dinner bells, she slammed her pen down on her desk. Hadn’t Sam’s first time been enough? Just five years ago. 2005. Like yesterday, really. Her mind flew away and tumbled down a roaring waterfall. Would she fall apart again? Would she cry, rant, yell? It was hard enough then to think of going on alone. Now she was that much older, seventy, but still not ready to be a widow.

You see the fun?! Rolling out your guts on the page and seeing where it leads. Try participating in the November Novel Writing Month.  Check it out here.