And the countdown begins

It's only a month until NaNoWriMo 2009, thirty days. I was excited up until today; now I'm more nervous than anything else. Last year, though it was my first NaNoWriMo experience and I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect, I at least had a place to be. I had an apartment; I had a computer room set up. I could close the door on everything else, all distractions, and just hole up in the spare bedroom and type and listen to "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" soundtrack. This year that is not an option. My husband and I are living in the finished basement of his mother's home, while we save and look for a house. We're not going to have a house before November begins, so I'm facing the prospect of sitting at my desk, albeit at least with my brand new laptop, in a wide-open space with everything from the TV to my husband's computer games screaming in my ear. I could close myself into the bedroom if necessary, but that isn't the same as being in my own writing space. There's no desk in there, and the space is too small anyway to fit a desk if I wanted to drag one in there. It isn't conducive to writing. But even this is the best case scenario. A worse one would be if we DO find a house in the coming weeks and close on it and start moving — in November!! I've faced this prospect for the past several months, ever since it seemed likely that we might move in the fall. I don't know which is worse, having to spend thirty days in a dark basement trying to ignore distractions that occur when you keep a space with someone else who doesn't share a passion for writing, or having to relocate mid-month and face the distractions of packing and moving and getting used to a new space.

It's been over the last few months that I've felt like I really understand how Jane Austen felt when she moved with her parents and older sister Cassandra to Bath, where she lived for several years unable to write a thing because she was so completely uninspired by her place of residence and so wholly unable to charm her muse into submission. That is how I've felt since March when we moved into the cave. There's no window near which I might sit, there's no ray of sunlight that falls on my desk and removes my soul to distant lands of intrigue and illumination. It is the pit of despair, the heart of darkness. Over the next month I must figure out how I'm going to handle this problem, for abandoning NaNoWriMo 2009 is not an option.