Day 2: NaNovember 2023

End of Day One kickoff word count=1677
Start of Day Two word count=3353

I also thought I'd try Inktober/Cartoonistober/Drawtober last month. I started strong the first ten days. Then slowed. Then, when it became five days that I hadn't drawn even a 3x3 sticky note quick sketch, I accepted the reality that October 2023 was not a drawing month for me. I also stepped back from the Diary Comics class I'd signed up via Push/Pull. The first meeting was wonderful, the artist instructor was nice. I liked it. But I had too much happening at the time and realized something had to go. 

That's okay, too. That actually is a part of NaNoWriMo (or any writing or other creative adventure) - learning how to recognize when there is too much and it is interfering with, not supporting, your creativity. 

Earlier this week I listened to an episode of Cabana Chats from August 2023. She was talking about honoring and managing your capacity. That resonated. My capacity right now is a little lower than usual and it is not a moral or ethical failing, it's a fact. With the world on fire and politics (abroad, not just here) in the toilet and thousands of people being tortured and bombed and a list of atrocities I'm sure I don't need to recite to anyone who even glimpses at the news - of course my capacity is less. I am spending more energy on keeping afloat emotionally and spiritually. It can take more of my resources to get through a workday, where I work with an expansive range of people, many of whom hold different beliefs from mine, who may be in the opposition groups, who may say things which I believe to be morally bankrupt. Yet I have to be just as present and excellent at my profession for them as for someone whose beliefs are more in align with mine. That's good. That's a line I've learned to navigate well, and I am glad to have had to opportunity to associate with all kinds of people in this work. 

But sometimes my personal capacity is lessened by how much of it I have to expend at work. At being neutral and honoring the conversations I help facilitate. Because the conversations are theirs, not mine. My job is to allow the people in the conversations to be their full selves and fully express what they have to say in their own ways. I can do that.

Then I need my own time.

My capacity reservoir can run low when the need is high everywhere else in my life. 

All of this to say that

- I am resilient

- I am strong

- I am and will be fine

- I have limits

- right now life is sometimes hard.

So I am honoring my capacity and sometimes, I have to say, no. Not today.

So, I am doing NaNoWriMo. I even have a bit of a storyline started already, which is good, and unexpected. I am in the final month of the Mavens of Mythmaking year-long program, which has been amazing and I've benefitted from this writing community and Ariel's teachings and exploration opportunities; and I've made progress on the manuscript. The chapbook is going to be delayed; it is definitely not going to be completed within the Chapbook Challenge class time. The chapbook plan is solid and good and I want to do it - but I don't have the capacity.

So. NaNoWriMo gets to stay. The Mavens of Mythmaking, I am scrambling to get caught up with feedback for others. I hope to return to the Friday Night Comics soon, and dip back into drawing, which is always fun but it's been difficult recently to feel connected to that form of expression. Hopefully the fog of a too full schedule will lift soon and I can add more visual expression, as well (which is a major part of the chapbook).