That blue & white bowl is for — get this — organic lollipops. Yep, I actually bought such a thing, on my pre-Halloween Good Food Store NaNoWriMo preparation shopping trip. I kept reading about all the food one consumes during this marathon, what makes the best snacks, on and on — so, among several other things, I got these.

As it turns out, I don’t actually eat while I write. How does one do that, anyway? Both hands are busy on the keyboard. But lollipops — those work. One or two fruity lollipops per day.

If I’d thought about it, I would have realized that I never have eaten while I write — even when writing by hand. Though occasionally I write while I eat. A different thing entirely.

Niki asked in a comment: Will we see results of your writing here at the end of the month?

And the answer is . . .

Um, no.

Because. Because I am writing without expectation. Because it is an exercise. Because I’ve no idea if there will be anything worth sharing — and if there is, it will take several months, at a guess, to get it into shape.

Just now I am confronting the necessity to kill off a character I love. The necessity is as organic as those lollipops, and as unintended. I didn’t resist the lollipops, but I am resisting this … murder.

Story writing is so different from poem writing. More different than I had anticipated. One difference, for me, is that I’m avoiding reading fiction. In fact, I’m hardly reading anything. When I am writing poems, I am reading poems, with no fear that some other voice will intrude on my own; quite the contrary, nothing inspires a poem for me like reading other people’s work. But now I am cautious, wary.

It will be interesting to see how — if — this experience changes the way I read novels, once I do so again. I’ve never read with a critic’s eye; I tend to fall into a book, and then fall out of it at the end. It has to be pretty bad for me to watch it while I read it. But I suspect I am going to be more attentive to things like structure and plot and character development from now on.

Just don’t take the magic away…

[Today: 1550 words. So far: 43,694 words.]