No No NaNo

Almost everyone I know is doing National Novel Writing Month. It seems odd to me, perhaps because even if my life depended on it, I couldn’t write 50,000 words in a month. In six months, perhaps, but even that is stretching it. Where do all those words come from? If writers have such a well of words in them, why haven’t they been pouring out all year?

And why the push to write a novel? I could understand if all those thousands of people were setting November aside for something important — volunteer work in free clinics, perhaps. But a novel? The world is already awash in novels that don’t sell. Almost two million novels are written every year. Every single year. Two hundred thousand are published (which means that at any given moment, two million books might be on the market) and half of those are self-published. Seventy percent of all published novels sell less than 500 copies. Eighty-five percent sell less than 1000 copies. Sure, a few people who do NaNoWriMo manage to get their novel published, but if they needed NaNoWriMo to give them the impetus, what kind of writer are they?

Perhaps it’s the challenge. I do understand challenge, but like Gregory Peck in The Big Country, I prefer to keep my challenges private.

But still, for whatever reason, people by the thousands are churning out words by the thousands. I planned on writing this month, but I’ve never have liked going along with the crowd. I know a clinic that needs help. You can find me there. 

New Moon Rising: Falling in Love With Computers

It is not often one gets to fall in love at first sight twice.

I am new to computers and the Internet. I got my first computer two years ago, a hand-me-down with Windows 98 and Word 97. Used to a typewriter (an electronic one, but still a typewriter), I fell in love with the computer at first sight. Oh, the ease of correction, of finding pertinent sections, of formatting and editing!

In March I received a new computer as a gift. At first I thought it was another hand-me-down, which was exciting in itself. (I am already to the point where I don’t think a person can have too many computers.) But when I realized it was a brand new laptop, I was so stunned I started shaking.

I turned it on, and it was love at first sight. Again. Big, bright screen. Windows Vista and Word 2007. Wow!

A few months later, I signed up for the Internet. I played computer games, sent emails, did some research, but other than that I didn’t really know what to do with this tremendous resource.

After several weeks of just piddling around, I discovered blogging and began publishing my thoughts, getting feedback, trying to come up with new and interesting topics. What fun!

Then I entered a writing contest. Computer games pale in comparison to the thrill of checking out my ranking and garnering votes to keep my lead. I can hardly wait to turn the computer on every morning to see how I am doing and to outline a new strategy.

I marvel that just a short time ago I didn’t know what to do with the Internet; now I don’t know what I would do without it. At a time of life when many people are settling for what is, I am speeding into a future I cannot even imagine, all thanks to my new love of computers.

Writing the First Chapter of My Life

One thing I like about writing a novel is that I can go back in time and change anything I want. A character needs a better childhood, a newer car, a more successful career? A few keystrokes and it is done. A character made a mistake or did something shameful? No problem. It can be deleted.

In life, however, nothing can delete the past; we are stuck with what has been written. As we age, the weight of the past begins to feel like destiny, and if we were luckless, we begin to feel as if we will always be luckless.

But life can change.

After menopause, I changed so much that I barely recognize myself. I have more energy, more hope, stronger fingernails and less weight than I have had in decades. I also have a few more wrinkles and some gray hairs, but they just underline the fact that I am not who I once was.

For me — for everyone — the past truly is prologue. So what if we’ve lived a long time. So what if we can’t go back and write out the mistakes, the shameful acts, the failures of our lives. We can confine all of that to the prologue where it belongs and begin writing the first chapter today, a chapter where we are wise, witty, and perhaps even lucky.  

Menopause: Playing the Game

  When I started going through menopause, I considered writing a book about my experiences, focusing on what did and did not work for me, but also including the latest research on the problems of menopausal women. Then it dawned on me that there are thousands of professional women out there with long strings of letters after their names who would be writing the same type of book. Since I have no alphabet soup to my name, I figured publishers wouldn’t want to buy my book, so I gave up the idea and concentrated on writing a novel. (Which, to date, no publisher has bought, though yesterday I did send the manuscript to an agent who wanted to read it.)

But now, in this blog, I can write my menopause book in bits and bytes, jumping from philosophical rambles, to personal experiences, to suggestions, to current research without any regard for the cohesiveness that would be necessary in a published book. So far, though, I haven’t been writing much about current research. I don’t find it very impressive.

One study, for example, concluded that menopause is linked to weight gain. The study showed that estrogen helps control food intake and body fat distribution, which is why after menopause women’s fat shifts to the belly. This might be true, but it sounds to me like a plug to get more women to take estrogen replacement therapy. The vast majority of us don’t take it, and that’s lost income for the pharmaceutical industry.

Two things the study does not explain are why some women, for no apparent reason, begin to lose weight after menopause, and why, in our younger, estrogen-rich years many of us gained weight, also for no apparent reason.

It seems to be an extension of the same diet misinformation we’ve been force-fed for the past several decades, with one diet after another promising help, though few ever did. The simple fact is, that for a certain segment of the population, calories don’t count. If you come from peasant stock, particularly in countries that routinely starved their peasants, your legacy is a body bred for fuel efficiency. The less you eat, the less you need to eat. And, to make sure that starving peasant women could continue to bear children, their bodies stored fat under the abdominal muscles guaranteeing that the unborn child would be fed. You probably inherited that, too. After menopause, the fat and the extra weight are no longer needed, and they come off.

Here I’ve linked estrogen to weight loss instead of weight gain like the experts did. See how the game is played? And my conclusion has the added benefit of not trying to stick the entire postmenopausal population into a one-size-fits-all category. We were individuals when we were young, and we are individuals today.

That’s why, in the end, I decided to write my book even if only as this blog. So what if I don’t have a string of letters after my name. I still have a voice. 

Searching for Serendipity

 This afternoon while I was out for a walk (as you can see, I take my own advice) I noticed that in front of me the sky was bright and the few clouds were limned with gold, yet behind me the sky was almost black with low-hanging storm clouds. It seemed to be a reflection of my new life: walking away from the dark past into a bright future.

But where am I going? What will I find? Serendipity, I hope.

I know searching for serendipity is an oxymoron. One does not search for serendipity; it’s the good fortune one finds while searching for something else. But still, I am on a quest for serendipity. To that end, I’ve been doing all sorts of things I’ve never done before, like learning about computers, getting on the internet, blogging, writing. All of these things are the A+B before the equal sign, but it’s what comes after that counts, and that’s what I’m working for. I do not want to be one of those hapless people who do not recognize luck when it comes their way; I want to be ready for it, whatever it might be.

This year my sister sent me a birthday present. We’d been out of touch for so long, I was thrilled that she thought to buy something for me. I set the beautifully wrapped gift on the counter so I would be surprised whenever I caught a glimpse of it. A present! For me!

That’s what the future is to me right now. A beautifully wrapped present waiting to be opened. I hope it’s what I want most in the world, even though I don’t know what that could be. Except serendipity.

Menopause: A New Moon Rising

Our cells have a lifespan of seven years, which means that every seven years we become a totally new person. A woman of menopausal years has lived approximately eight body-generations. Is it any wonder, then, that some of us feel as if we’ve been reborn? There doesn’t seem much of the younger me left, not even in memory; in fact, some of my earliest memories are fading. Good riddance, I say. While happy memories can be a pleasure, sad ones only weigh a person down, and the least baggage I take into my new life, the lighter I can travel.

Where am I going? Well, in the end, to the same place all of us are going, but talk of graves is not proper during a celebration. But for now? I don’t know. I guess that’s part of the joy, that not knowing.

When a person lives a life of losing, they tend to shut down; the only power she feels she has is the power to say no. And eventually all those nos end up creating a life with a lot of nothing. So, in my new persona, I’m embracing yes.

When I was young, I wanted to be a writer, but found I had no talent and none of the wisdom I needed to be the kind of writer I wanted to be, so as life made its demands, I gradually let this desire atrophy. Well, I still have no talent and no wisdom, but I’m not letting that stop me from doing what I want to do. So now I’m writing again. And when my sister suggested I enter a writing contest, I agreed, even though the remnants of the old me know the truth: that winning such a contest is more politics than ability, and I have even less talent for politics than I do for writing.

But, embracing the power of yes, I did enter, and who knows? This new person that I am becoming may be the sort of person who CAN win a contest.

At the very least, it’s a starting point for my new life.