NaNoWriMo and all that

I have talked before about how a series of personal setbacks, coupled with a planning-heavy class that I took over at the last minute, have left me little head-space and inspiration for poetry writing. I think it is more than this though - I think I am lacking a theme to write around. Not having a theme never used to be a problem but putting together a collection has somehow made me feel like all my writing has to be cohesive. Realising this has been quite useful, and I am hoping that it will free me up creatively. What I need to do, I now realise, is simply write and out of writing eventually a theme will (hopefully) emerge.

However that said I am not writing much poetry, but instead have been participationg in National Novel Writing Month. The aim is to write part of a novel every day for a month - so that in theory at the end you will end up with a nearly completed novel. I have been averaging around 10000 words a day, which is not bad, although I have had a couple of days where I haven't written anything. I am writing parts of a novel that I started a while ago. I was not really sure where it was going or who it was aimed at - but at the moment it seems to be going in the direction of becoming a novel for young adults. Writing every day like this is a good discipline. I wonder though if I am being too ambitious thinking that I can write poetry and fiction alongside each other. It seems to me that poetry and prose use different parts of the brain. I may be making that last bit up of course...