Are you all participating? If so, tell me about your projects!

I have a challenge for such here: https://theprose.com/challenge/11351

Also, if you’d like to, you can join my discord community full of writers and all things creative!

https://discord.gg/Cbf3NXq

God bless you all, and happy WriMo!

I'm no good at fiction writing, I'm really not. (Even after recent discussions on Prose as to what it means to be a "good" writer.) This is my first year, my first shot, at NaNoWriMo. I've been lenient with my word count every day, and I am going to cheat - I'll probably finish in late December; I've given myself two months instead of one.

The Blurb is this: I'm writing about my experiences in Boston. I lived there for almost two years, with nothing to show for it except some work experience and a tremendous amout of rejection and heartbreak. It's absolutely devastating to write about, to have to rehash these moments. I've decided to be vulnerable instead of just "good."

The below two excerpts are some of what I've written so far. So far I have 3,000 words (obviously not all included in this post). Which is way below where I should be, but so it goes. I'm ripping my heart out to share my story.

Again, nevermind if it's "good." I want this to help someone who has gone through a similar experience, who needs to know they are not alone. Such is the extent of most of my pieces on Prose.

So it goes, below.

First excerpt:

There are so many ways to enter this story.

Let’s start with group therapy, and let’s start with my intake. As with most scenarios in which I was bored, restless, or needed to burn time, I found myself drinking. The bar I graced my presence with was some small establishment that no one else was occupying at 3pm. I was alone, as usual, preparing mentally for what lay ahead. An IPA was helping lubricate my brain, and I felt that I wasn't even tipsy; I could do this thing.

There were rules laid down first and foremost at the beginning of my intake. The rules were simple, one of the first being: don’t show up intoxicated or on drugs. (Oops.) Be honest and open, etc. Be respectful. I figured, even with some groundrules, that group therapy would be a great way to burn time after work. And what the hell, my copay was next to nothing.

The therapist’s name was Ethan. He was nice. That’s, honestly, the first adjective I’d use to describe him and probably the last. Later, when I had learned more about him, I would discover that he really, really wanted to help us. He was a Good Person. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was a good therapist – too easy-going, never wanting to stop anyone from sharing Their Truth, as too honest as some confessions were.

Another excerpt:

There was a guy, Nicki, who lived on Ellington Street. Many months after things with Nicki deteriorated, there was another guy I met, who lived directly across the street from Nicki. Strange coincidence, but there you have it. Cambridge is a small place.

'Oh,' the second guy of Ellington Street said. I didn’t know you liked girls.' 'No,' I said. 'His name was Nicki because it was a nickname for Nicholas.' Except, I said this later, because in the moment, I didn’t want to give away that I wasn’t that quirky (I wasn't, in fact, bisexual), with a character that left something to really contemplate. In Boston, while I was living there, there was nothing to contemplate about me at all, except that I was rather boring. I was someone who was good for a solid three hours and then rapidly became someone with which it was time to let go, to end the conversation with. I was let go of a lot in Boston. A lot of conversations ended, or were left openended.