Four Years Ago

You can only live your one tiny life, but with books, you can live thousands more. -- some random person on Reddit.

It's NaNoWriMo again, and no, I am not doing it, but I am always thinking about NaNoWriMo in November. Although I have not participated since 2009, I still think of the event as one of the best a writer can do in their lives. I knew it would feel great to finish, but it really changed me and my writing in ways I never anticipated when I began. It is one of my proudest accomplishments, that I finished. And (without sounding outrageously conceited) given that my life has yielded objectively a lot of pretty cool accomplishments, it says a lot about me, I hope, and what I value.

I know I am one of the few people in law school who reads fiction for fun consistently. People are constantly amazed that I still regularly buy and check out novels in between reading cases and journal articles. Most people I know haven't read a novel in years. They don't see the point in it. They don't enjoy it. But reading fiction is something that you only enjoy when you make yourself do it. I could easily stop reading, and after a while, I would stop missing it, but I can't let that happen. I don't want to forget the experience of reading a good book. It is a feeling that you must regularly go through to remember that you like it.

It's funny to think that it's been four years since my first and last NaNo, and that I still think of it every year. I went to my local public library today and saw advertisements for write-ins throughout the month and smiled. The next one is Monday. I think I'll go, even though I'm only working very slowly on my current novel, and not trying to win NaNo. I think I'll go because I miss writing with people. I miss the community very much. I even miss the person I was four years ago, with a kind of fond nostalgia.

I checked out three books at the library today. This weekend, I would like to be about me and stories. I would like to have nothing and just a few afternoons with coffee and a couple of great books. To get away from here and see where they take me.