NaNoWriMo 2023 Twenty-four Hours in Vancouver: The Conclusion

I would be remiss to exclude my feelings with this project, this year's NaNoWriMo, this Twenty-four Hours in Vancouver. The feelings, all of them, intense ones too, are all over the place. The truth is, I really don't know how I feel or where to begin.

I could begin in 1999, November. I wrote the original story then. I was living in Southeast Portland and working for the Cascade Pacific Council, Boy Scouts of America. I was 27. I was very unhappy, and for the life of me now, I have no idea why. I was unhappy with work. I thought I was a sellout. But being a sellout, as such, doesn't seem that bad of a thing to me now. I felt like a fraud working for the Boy Scouts too. I didn't like Southeast Portland. All I wanted to be was a writer, even if I didn't know what that meant.

I could begin in mid 2009 and Undertakers of Rain. I say that because I used a character from that novel, Sam Foley, and I put him in the new Twenty-four Hours in Vancouver. 2009, I was in Denver. I had recently graduated from Goddard College with my MFA in writing. In 2009 and with Undertakers of Rain I was really exorcising the ghosts of 1999. I set the novel in Portland, Southeast Portland and the characters were both about 27, 28 years old.

I could begin with January 2023, not even a year ago, and the thoughts I was having. When I decided to write “real” novels from old drafts, I did so with a very sober head and clear heart. I knew that these stories were going to take me to Astoria, as was the case with The Cataract and I knew Exile was going to take me to Denver, 1993. I loved ever bit of both of those experiences.

Twenty-four Hours in Vancouver took me to many places, and many places all at once. It took me to Vancouver, and my memories of the place. It took me to 1999. It took me to Portland, who I was at the time of the original draft. It took me to a place, ten years later, after grad school. It took me to 2009, Denver and who I was at the time of writing Undertakers of Rain. And in the years since then, I left Denver, for Portland and then back again and ultimately to the small town I live in now in rural northern Colorado.

It has been a little bit of all the things that life brings. It has been all those experiences that make a life, that make an artist, that make a writer. It has been a very reflective year with these three NaNoWriMo projects. I am suddenly very grateful for all the hours, and there have been many, that I've spent writing.

This novel is number 24. I have one more rewrite for next year. After that, I have the drafts of three more. In a way, I am very behind on my work. In another way, I still have so much to do.