NanoWriMo Round 2

Somewhere on the northern part of the Appalachian Trail, 2010.

Last year I won at writing and accomplished my goal of finishing a NanoWriMo event (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time. I’d written about half of that about a decade ago but had never finished the full 50K words. This year I’m at it again but am finishing the book I started last year. I had intended to spend time editing and finish the book earlier this year but my interest waned. Instead I have spent the last few days reacquainting myself with the book and characters. I thought I had remembered enough about it but apparently not because some of it is like reading it for the first time! It’s probably not the best way to go into this round but it is what it is and I do want to finish the book.

Without going into too much detail, the book is a fiction Appalachian Trail book. I have never wanted to write a memoir of our hike as that market is saturated and I feel like my blog posts satisfy that need to document that time, but I have always felt the desire to write something about the trail. So, a fiction book is what I’m working on. As is what happened last year, I am bringing up a lot of the memories and feelings from that time period. I so badly wish I could go back to 2010 and just soak in some of those moments on the trail more. I wish I had more photos, too, but this was before we had smart phones and we only had our camera. And I went into that hike with the purpose of not trying to document every step but here I am 12 years later wishing I had more. I haven’t seen a white blaze since we left Baxter State Park at the end of the trail and never thought it would be this long before seeing one again. Needless to say, I’m trying not to dwell in it all but at some point I think I need to write more about post-trail grief, even a decade later.

Also, thank you to everyone who commented on my garden post last week, either here or elsewhere. I appreciate it and I have more to say on that topic at some point.