2015 was filled with lots of exciting events -- a move across the country, a new job and little travel. Something 2015 was not filled with? Writing. My new digs, new surroundings and new day to day routines left me feeling excited and sometimes overwhelmed. There were so many new things to see and do that my brain was exhausted and utterly devoid of creativity. So many nights I sat on my couch, laptop perched on my legs with a completely empty Word document on the screen, taunting me. I wanted to write and felt untold amounts of guilt for not tending to my stories. My characters invaded my thoughts, begging me to tell their tales. I'd hand write a scene here and there, or try my hand at a prompt, but, when it came down to it, the creativity well was dry. I thoroughly missed it, but had nothing interesting to say.
Enter NaNoWriMo.
Every November I get the NaNoWriMo bug. I don't know what it is about staying up into the wee hours of the morning, plugging away at a seemingly insurmountable word count that is so appealing to me, but I love it. I did not hit my 50K words, but I did clear the halfway point and I was thrilled with that. To go from not writing at all to making a serious dent in a story I've been kicking around for a few years made me feel great and helped me to start chipping away at the writer's block. A few months later I'm back to writing and submitting short stories while still plugging away at my NaNo novel. The creativity well isn't pumping at full speed yet, but it is definitely more than a trickle.
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