Yes, People, Yes.

Last week, before my back surgery, I was fearing the worst about NaNoWriMo - that I wouldn't be able to do much in the first couple of weeks because of altered mental states due to medicine and not being able to sit up much. I was, honestly, dreading this whole recovery process. While I love to read, it loses much of its luxury when it's the only thing I can do. I don't do well with cabin fever, either.

Turns out, it's not an issue. The medicines that I'm taking don't alter my mental state more than make me rather sleepy and perhaps a bit more likely to write what first enters my mind rather than what gets filtered through the fine muslin of my perpetual mental editor. Add to this the capacity to sit for a couple of hours at a time at least three times a day, and November is shaping up to be pretty damn productive. I have no work obligations, and no where to go except for walks to build up my endurance.

I also have a great story idea this year that promises to give me plenty of imaginative romping room. I'm exploring some steampunk/apocalypse punk ideas within a framework of time manipulation.

As such, I've been playing around with my writing music list. I've recently been introduced to Armin Van Buuren, a Trance DJ, whose music provides me with just the kind of ambiance that I need to push my story forward. I started listening to trance when I was a graphic artist, when I needed something to engage my mind while I played around visually. I love the repetitive nature with few lyrics. Lyrics, I've noticed, snatch my attention too much, causing me to listen too closely to what they words are, to analyze rather than create. I've also found that classical music takes too much of my attention as well. Trance just let's me bob on the surface and play.

So I'm likely to be listening to a lot of Armin Van Buuren next month.

My husband just asked me why I wait until November to focus on my story - why I don't just start now. I've asked myself that, periodically, when I have an idea that I can't wait to flesh out, but have to settle for sketching in the meantime. I'm getting antsy to start writing on this baby. But for me, NaNoWriMo gives me the competition that I like to have, and the deadline. I can set myself deadlines all I want, but I suck at keeping them. Even when I tell my friends I'll have something done, I just...don't hold to it. But NaNo is a set time, a set date, and if I don't make the deadline, I feel rotten.

Have I mentioned how much I like Armin Van Buuren's music? I'm listening to it now, and I'm just...yes. Yes, indeed.

SIX DAYS, MY FRIENDS! SIX DAYS AND THIS ADVENTURE WILL COME TO LIFE!

Damn, I can't wait.