NaNoWriMo, I’m coming for you.

I like a good challenge.  My girlfriend says I’m too hard on myself and she’s probably right (of course she’s right — she reminds me all the time that she’s ALWAYS right), but I also believe that you have to push a little in life if you’re going to make things happen.  And sometimes, you gotta crack the whip on yourself.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pushing a little, so long as you don’t push too far and too hard for too long.

Example:  I ran a 13-mile obstacle race recently and finished 77 out of 330ish in my age group.  I was a little disappointed with myself for those results.  (My girlfriend says that I am being too hard on myself.)

Too hard on myself or no, a Spartan Beast race is a good example of something that just isn’t going to happen if you aren’t willing to push yourself beyond what you think you are capable of.

This month’s push:  50,000 words in one month.

Another thing I was disappointed in myself for was how long it took me to finish Princess of Dorsa.  The book that I thought would be out by the end of June at the latest ended up taking until mid-October.  That’s ridiculous, and I don’t want to do that again.

That’s why I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year.  If you haven’t heard of it before, that stands for “National Novel Writing Month,” and the goal is to write a novel, or at least 50,000 words in the month of November.

One week in so far, and how am I doing?

Well, judge for yourself:

You can see that I’m a little bit behind schedule. But only a little.  If it were a Spartan race, I’d be telling myself, “Okay now, time to pick up the pace!”

(I was doing pretty well until I started watching the second season of Making a Murderer.  That’s how I got behind schedule.  What a miscarriage of justice! (I mean the convictions of Avery and Dassey, not my binging habits.))

Granted, I have written and independently published nine novels and one novella since 2014.  And I think that’s not a bad pace.  Still, I think I’m capable of more.  And I don’t want to go through another Princess of Dorsa.

Crack the whip on me.  Go ahead — I don’t mind.

As part of my NaNoWriMo commitment, I invite you to crack the whip and help me finish this 50k race.

I’m also pledging to post a little chunk of the novel I’m working on — The Redevelopment of Drea and Kasey (working title; may change) — each week.

This week’s excerpt is below.

~ EXCERPT ~

Drea and Katie’s dad was the one who’d taught Drea almost everything she knew about home and car repair.  When Drea was Jasmine’s age, she’d follow her daddy around like a puppy, her arms filled with hammers, boxes of nails and screws, flathead screwdrivers, Philip’s head screwdrivers, extension cables, power tools.  He’d converted the garage into a workshop before Drea and Katie were ever born; Drea was nearly a teenager before she realized that most people used their garages to park their cars.  Growing up, the garage had always been filled with the smell of sawdust and motor oil.  It was the smell she’d come to associate with childhood.  With her father.

“Hand me the socket wrench, Jazz,” Drea said, reaching out towards her niece from beneath the truck.  “No, not that one.  That’s a regular wrench.  I need the socket wrench.”

She couldn’t see all of Jasmine from her spot beneath the truck, just the girl’s feet and her hands as she squatted outside the tire and reached for the tools.

“Yep,” Drea said when Jasmine’s hand hovered over the socket wrench.  “That’s the one.”

Jasmine snatched it up and she passed it to Drea.

“Mama’s got a new boyfriend again,” Jasmine commented.

“Yeah?” Drea said, only half-listening as she looked up into the truck’s innards.  “How do you know that?  She tell you?”

“No,” Jasmine admitted.  “But I know what she sounds like when she’s talking on the phone to a man she like.”

Drea figured that was probably true.  Jasmine was “street smart,” in her way.  Before Katie and Jasmine moved in with Drea, Katie had lived with three different boyfriends, all over a six-year period.  Jasmine was just a baby during Katie’s ill-fated, short-lived marriage to Jasmine’s father; after that, Katie lived by herself for a year, then there was DeShaun for two years, then Henry for almost three years, then Jarell for a little less than a year.

By the time Katie left Jarell, Jasmine was close to seven.  Debbie Robbins had already moved in with Drea, and she prodded and guilted Drea until Drea acquiesced and made room in the third bedroom of the small house for her sister and her niece.  That was a year and a half ago.  Having her family move in with her really wasn’t Drea’s intention when she’d first bought the house a few years earlier, but they were family, after all.  What was Drea going to do, tell her sister and seven year-old niece to keep living with a good-for-nothing man in a bad neighborhood just because Drea preferred to use the extra bedroom as an office?  She couldn’t do that.  Wouldn’t do that.

“I heard Gigi say on the phone to her friend on the phone that Mama collects men the way some women collect shoes,” Jasmine said.  Drea stifled a laugh.  “Then Gigi said that Mama’s always been that way.”  Jasmine paused.  “What’s that mean — the way some women collect shoes?”

“Well,” Drea said, trying to think of a diplomatic way to describe your sister.  “Your mama is very beautiful.  Plus she’s smart and she’s funny and she has a fun personality.  Because of that, it’s always been easy for her to get boyfriends.”

Drea was proud of herself for skirting the issue of shoe collection.

“Oh.”  Jasmine was quiet for a few seconds.  “Do you think it’ll be easy for me to get boyfriends one day?”

“Probably,” Drea said.

Now that she’d been living with her niece for a year and a half, she’d come to realize that nearly all the questions children ask seem to be loaded, with the potential for the adult answering to say something that would lead the child to the exact opposite conclusion or lesson that the adult wanted them to take away.  For example, if she said “Yes, it will be easy for you to get boyfriends one day,” then she would confirm the idea that Jasmine was beautiful, smart, and funny, but she might also inadvertently endorse Katie’s habit of, as their mother had put it, collecting men the way some women collected shoes.  But if she tried to steer Jasmine away from the idea that a successful woman was a woman who was good at getting boyfriends, then she might inadvertently suggest that Jasmine wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or funny enough to have men be attracted to her.

“You know what’s more important than having a boyfriend, Jazzy?” Drea said as she carefully removed the old oil filter.

“College?” Jasmine said.

Drea laughed, glad that her constant harping on the topic of the importance of higher education seemed to be paying off.  At least Katie was working on her pre-reqs for nursing school.  She was glad Jasmine had that example to watch.

“Yes, college is definitely more important than having a boyfriend,” Drea agreed, setting the old oil filter next to her.  She rolled out from under the truck and sat up so she could look at her niece when she spoke again.  “But I was actually going to say that what’s more important is feeling good about ourselves, whether we have a boyfriend or not.”

There.  That seemed like an appropriate lesson.  If Alice were here, she’d probably say, “Oooh, girl.  Good save!”

“Is that why you haven’t had a girlfriend in so long?” Jasmine asked.  “Because you care more about feeling good about yourself?”

She posed the question in that completely innocent way that only children have, with zero self-consciousness and not the slightest inkling that she might be treading into delicate waters.

Drea busied herself opening the new oil filter, giving herself some time to stall.  She pulled the filter out, turning it in her hand and lowering it so Jasmine could see.

But Jasmine didn’t look interested.  She stared at her Auntie Drea expectantly.

“I haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time,” Drea began, lying back down on the mechanic’s sled and rolling under the truck, “because I’m busy running a business and looking after my mother, my sister, and my niece.”

“That’s not what Mama says,” Jasmine said matter-of-factly.  “Mama says you haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time because you’re too bitter and too picky and determined to be an old maid.”

“When did your mama tell you that?” Drea asked, offended.

“She didn’t.  I heard her say it to Gigi one day.  What’s an old maid?”

An image popped into Drea’s head — a cranky old white woman wearing a tattered nightgown, a hair net, and surrounded by mewling cats.  It would be a funny image if not for the fact that it was what her sister had called her.

“An old maid is a kinda mean nickname for a woman who never gets married.”

And boom — just like that, somehow Auntie Drea had wandered back into the territory in which self-esteem and self-worth were determined by whether or not someone had a significant other.  She searched her mind for a way to save the situation again.

“But it’s an old-fashioned term,” she said quickly as she fit the fresh oil filter into place.  “From back in the days when women couldn’t do things like vote or live by themselves or date whoever they wanted or get a divorce without all the neighbors talking.  These days, there’s plenty of women who decide to put their careers first, and they don’t get married or they get married a lot later in life.”

“So that’s why you haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time?  Because you put your career first?”

Damn, this girl was just not going to let it go, was she?

“Something like that,” Drea said.