On one hand, it is NaNoWriMo, and as any good writer I am writing. On the other hand, I had decided early this month that I wouldn’t just write something new, I would commit to editing a project that I’ve been working on a long time but I just haven’t really finished yet.

In creating time to edit, I made myself limit my writing time. Not figuring, of course, about the distractions that abound between my birthday and Thanksgiving and other commitments.

I have learned quite a bit, and while I know there is another five days to write and edit, I am thankful that I set myself on this course. I’m not exactly where I’d like to be, but I have made progress toward both projects.

Also in both cases, the events of this month have intruded. It’s a curse of a writer, that all the things that I come in contact with will be reflected somewhere in my art. I’ll be in a different place when I finish, and so will these books. I hope for the better.

So many of the creative people around me have been derailed one way or another from the election. I know my struggle is echoed by many. But something I didn’t expect was how much the world looked differently between one day and the next. Perhaps you didn’t expect that, either.

I remember in my senior year of high school there was a boy who wondered if our kids would ask us where we were when they read the OJ verdict. That seems so long ago, and his worry so misplaced, that our kids would have nothing else to ask us about our witnessed history. My kids haven’t asked me these big historical questions yet, though occasionally I’ll tell her in relation to a book or some talk about an event that I was alive for it- or not. I’ll drag in her teachers and her grandparents and whomever else I can remember close to her in relation to those things, too. (My son is 4 and doesn’t ask these questions yet. I still involved him in the conversation.)

One day my kids might ask me about what happened during my lifetime. One day I hope to have answers. If you need me, I’ll be writing, editing, and otherwise staying busy. What will you do?