I’m re-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm because, lets be honest, I re-watch the same shows every couple of years. But also because this show is basically a MasterClass on storytelling and dialogue.

If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, then Curb Your Enthusiasm is a show that makes something out of nothing. The pants tent. The typo in the obituary. The matching jackets. Things blow up in Larry David’s world – or maybe just in his mind, before he speaks it and makes it so. Either way, it’s a great show to watch and realize that anything can turn into a story, and maybe there’s no reason to have writer’s block. Larry can turn anything into a story, roll it into a bigger deal with lies, and make it a huge drama. That’s storytelling.

I just finished Judy Blume’s MasterClass lesson on dialogue, ad as I started Curb Your Enthusiasm, I realized – talk about realistic dialogue examples! Interrupting, honesty, getting caught in a lie and having to flounder around in the moment. There might not be a big divide between Larry’s inner voice and what comes out of his mouth (as Blume tells you to consider with your characters), but that goes back to storytelling. The more he talks without a filter, the more he develops the story by digging himself into holes, burning bridges, and so on.

It’s always great to learn from media around you – it’s just one of the reasons everyone says you can’t be a writer unless you’re a reader. But getting writing encouragement from an unlikely source, something you just expected to watch to relax and revel in someone else’s drama, is a major perk.

[As in, the title should be “Allison Renner Writes a Blog … Sometimes.”]

NaNoWriMo has taken over my writing world this year, and it’s one of the best feelings ever. I’m still behind in terms of word count, but I’m catching up every day. And while I’m catching up, I feel like my story is getting stronger. I’m developing my main character more, creating predicaments and interesting scenes, and I’m really enjoying myself. I haven’t written something on this scale in years.

In fact, I’ve only written on this scale for NaNo, but I haven’t finished for many many years, mostly because of the daunting scale. Writing a novel is way different than writing a short story, and I haven’t even completed one of those satisfactorily in quite a while. I’ve been writing little blips here and there, patting myself on the back for the daily habit more so than what I was actually creating. And that’s important too, so I won’t dismiss it, but working on this big project… wow, it’s been amazing.

I’m currently at 19,118 words on a day when I should have 28,339 to finish on time. Stats tell me that at this rate I’ll finish on December 14th, and honestly, I’m ok with that. Because I know this story will make me finish. I need to get this written. But I’m not done writing today – it’s early afternoon, and I have time to write. I have days off for the Thanksgiving holiday to catch up and push through to the end. I think I’ll make it, even if I’m pretty behind right now.

But more than the satisfaction of the word count (and believe me, it is satisfying to update that word count), is knowing that I’m creating something good, something big, something I haven’t practiced in so long I wasn’t sure I knew how to do it anymore. But I do. And I am.

I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month for the 9th time since 2007. It’s interesting, scrolling back through my project history on the site, and having no recollection of a few of the WIPs. The ones I didn’t finished, incidentally, which kind of makes sense. I remember most details of 4 of the 5 novels I completed. One I remember a bit about, but don’t remember completing or what happened at the end. I guess I could read it like a book, but something about that seems unsettling. Do “real” authors read their own books? There’s so much out there that it seems like a waste to read something you created, even if you don’t really remember it.

But I digress. I feel rejuvenated about the concept of Nano this year, after successfully participating in Camp Nano during the month of July. I wrote every day, and I completed a lot of short stories, and even months later, I feel like I can accomplish anything. Mostly because the habit of daily writing is ingrained in me, even if it’s just morning pages. In addition to that task, I try to write fiction or “for fun” (aka creative nonfiction) as much as possible. Some days that is just writing down interesting thoughts or questions that come to mind that might inspire a story. Sometimes it’s funny stuff I overhear at work. Sometimes it’s ridiculous conversations I have at work (I work with children). Sometimes it’s a dream that seems so realistic I almost think it’s a memory, but there’s no way *that* could have happened.

I’m starting this round of Nano with less than a concept or outline, but something that launched my mind into overdrive regardless. When I logged in to declare my project, there was the option of giving a title. I typically type “Work In Progress”, “To Be Determined”, or “Untitled”. But this year, my computer had other plans for me. It remembered something I had typed on a random site back in the spring. Oh, don’t worry, it’s totally SFW. In fact, it’s something I typed for work. “Imaginary Friend Bingo”, a bingo card I created on a random website for the Family Book Clubs I hosted at school in April. That’s what auto-populated, and so that is what my novel will be called.

As I said, my mind is running rampant with this minor restriction. Is it a collection of short stories about imaginary friends? Is it a Toy Story rip-off about imaginary friends coming to life and having adventures? Is it a series of interviews with people asking who their imaginary friends were and what they did with said friends? (This one is especially appealing, since I work with children.) Is it a mix of all of the above, combined with research, packaged as a volume about friendship and play?

Probably not. It will probably be whatever’s been in the back of my mind that I’ve intended to write about but never found time. But! The thought is out there, and my mind is churning, and isn’t that really the point of writing, anyway?

No?

Well then.

In 2009 I made a Twitter account because… because. But as a result, I made so many wonderful friends. We tweeted every morning to the extent that it felt like we had our own morning show.

I tweeted my morning commutes from Midtown to East Shelby because there was so much to share. This was before live-tweeting was a thing, and I wasn’t live-tweeting anyway, I was posting once I got to work. People would reply “Pictures or it didn’t happen” when I described the random, only-in-Memphis things I’d see on my drive, but I never delivered. I didn’t have a camera phone. I was tweeting via the website, and eventually the technology progressed so that I could text a certain number, and whatever I texted would show up as a tweet.

That was a disaster.

But, as I said, I made so many wonderful friends. Wonderful friends to visit in other cities, wonderful friends who visited my city, wonderful friends I am still friends with to this day. But I left Twitter, for a reason I can’t remember now. It became too much, I’m sure; doesn’t it all?

I tried to join again just over a year ago, for photography, I think. Or my storytelling community. But it still seemed like too much. I couldn’t tweet and retweet and reply. I couldn’t keep up with all the demands of my online life on top of my real life.

I joined again two months ago, for professional reasons, following mostly authors, librarians, and people I know personally. And it’s almost, almost, like OG Twitter. But… better. I’m exposed to more people and more viewpoints than I was before, when I felt like my friends and I hosted a self-centered morning show.

I know most of it is the algorithm, that I’m seeing things other people liked so many times Twitter thinks I will like it, too. And Twitter is often right. Even when Twitter is wrong, I’m still seeing stories that are trending and I should know just because I’m a human in the world on social media.

But sometimes, Twitter hits it out of the park and shows me something relevant to what I’ve written about recently. Specifically, something I wrote about quickly and posted without editing or giving a second thought to, because it probably wouldn’t have been posted otherwise.

https://twitter.com/rachsyme/status/1187846149945942021

I remember reading cards on PostSecret and thinking “Yes! That is exactly what I’m feeling right now.”

I remember creating cards I never sent to PostSecret, thinking “I hope people will be able to relate to this feeling.”

Now I feel things and I keep them inside. I don’t ask other women, other parents, if they feel the same. It feels too raw to tell them, to ask them. I can’t make myself that vulnerable.

But I want to know if they relate. So I push myself to ask the deep questions of people I don’t quite know. “Do you feel alone? Do you feel smothered? Do you want to be alone?”

The questions we ask change with our stages in life. But we should still ask them, because we should still try to connect.

(Be warned: if you send me a picture text, I’m likely to use it as a writing prompt. After asking permission, of course – I’m not a monster!) This picture was sent to me one early morning by Janet, a fellow writer who most likely knew this type of image would inspire a story.

I’m up too early. Unable to sleep. I step slowly through the house as if seeing it for the first time. It looks different in the morning dark. It looks different with no one else awake.

I grip the doorknob as it turns so it will not jangle and wake the others. It may sound like I am so thoughtful, that I want them to continue sleeping uninterrupted. I just don’t want them to be alerted to my presence. I need to be alone.

The backyard is draped in fog, giving the impression that it goes on for miles. It doesn’t, I know. Everything has a limit.

The fence is distinct, even in the haze. It looks spindly but sturdy, which is a stark contrast to how it looks in broad daylight. How it looks in daylight is janky and broken down, and it makes him rant about how much a new fence is going to cost us and how I should go ask the neighbors to chip in.

I unfocus my eyes as I stare into the fog, past the walkway behind our house, so far beyond that I can imagine anything I want back there. A quieter home, a bigger yard, a different world.

I sit on the grass and feel the cool dew on the back of my legs. I lie down and my shirt gets damp. I press myself into the ground, my legs together and arms stuck to my sides. I pretend I am in the bottom of a canoe, floating away on a vast body of water. I hear waves pounding the boat, but I know it must be the rumble of my house waking up. I need to get my canoe back to shore, climb up and out and into the house before they wake up and find me gone, or peer out of a window and see me out here. Here, where I can still manage to find a sense of peace, an escape, however imaginary it may be. This is mine, they do not need to know about any of it.

I push myself up from the ground and pad back into the house. My feet are still slightly damp, leave vague footprints on the wood floor. I know they will dry up before anyone notices them, faint as they are.

From 2008 to 2017 I had a personal blog called Allison Writes. It was initially allisonwrites.blogspot.com, until someone convinced me to buy AllisonWrites.com. I did, and I blogged thrice a week for many, many years, until it fizzled out. To be fair, “fizzling out” coincided with having a toddler and my dream job, so blogging didn’t seem as vital as it was in, say, 2009, when I was an MFA student in a new city desperate to connect with someone, anyone. Or in 2011, when I was traveling alone and wanted to keep everyone updated about my whereabouts (oh, and safety) so I didn’t have to email them directly.

A year or so ago, I thought I might take up some form of personal blogging again. I had been book blogging since 2014, and, let’s be honest, for a writer and booknerd, book blogging is pretty damn close to personal blogging. But I yearned for the heydays of blogging, ala 2008-2012, when you could be open and honest because no one you actually knew would read unless you sent the link personally. (And sometimes, not even then.) I typed in “AllisonWrites.com” to see about renewing the domain, and was alarmed to see it was going for over $2,000. (I used to pay $100/year for the privilege.) True, I had a few sponsorships in my day, and well over 100 (did you gasp?!) subscribers. But having my trusty ol’ domain name was not worth the price, so I pushed blogging to the wayside and did… whatever I have been doing for the past year or so.

Cue writing a book (did you gasp?!) and having it published and getting active in conference life once again. I was again thinking “Maybe I should blog. But not personally. Professionally.” AllisonWrites.com was still too expensive, though as I look at it today it is a mere $395 (via Huge Domains.com, which made me snort), though I’m not sure if that’s ownership or rental. Still, I figured I would start somewhat fresh with the more professional AllisonRennerWrites.com – using the last name shows that I am no longer a 20-something blogging about the attractive plumbers that came to my apartment and drinking beer flights in Minnesota. No, now I am a published writer, a “grown-up” who merely thinks about the attractive plumbers that come to her home (see the callback to ownership vs rental) and pretends that a six-pack from Kroger is as exquisite as a beer flight from another state.

If any of you have found me here from the glory days of AllisonWrites.com (stalkers), you will be pleased to know that I still love listening to music, taking random adventures, and find myself to be funnier than I actually am. If you’re new here, then Hello! Please disregard everything you’ve just read, and stay tuned for more “grown up” writing to come.