Posts Tagged Writing

It’s a week after this year’s NaNoWriMo has closed out and I’ve done some reflecting on what I’ve learned after another year’s efforts to write an entire novel in thirty short, short days. To be completely accurate I should say I’ve done some reflecting on what I’ve been forced to learn after another year’s efforts. These weren’t lessons that I had to struggle to come to; these are lessons that I couldn’t ignore.

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Following on the heels of the last post, I am rolling up some of my projects and night time activities into a more consolidated, hopefully more manageable, system of operations. The main impetus for doing this is my personal affinity for immediate gratification. Yes, as patient as I am, I like it when my feelings of accomplishment are present (as opposed to off in the future).

So I like to see things get done, and get done sooner rather than later. To help that happen I’m un-stretching myself; consolidating similar activities in order to put more weight behind them. Read on dear reader and see what I mean.

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“Don’t put the cart before the horse”.

I love this little phrase. Not because it’s particularly profound or complex. Mostly because it’s common sense, which still remains an uncommon thing. I mean, this is pretty simple advice right? Don’t put your cart in front of your horse and expect it to be pulled somewhere. It’s not magic, just a question of logic. If you want to move forward in life, the mechanism that does the work (horse) must be in place  before you settle into the aspirations or dreams (cart).

But it happens all the time, doesn’t it? When someone is looking to start a business, or looks into making money online, they get caught up in the details. The wrong details. They get caught up in the administrative stuff.

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If you’ve been around the site before you’ve probably noticed that up there on the right, in a position meant to draw your line of sight, sits a counter. Not just any counter mind you, one that is based on my “expected expiration date”. Nearly a year ago I went in search of a way to create an estimated mortality date based on family disease history, personal disease history, height, weight, age, and activity level.

That search led me to the date that is referenced in The Countdown (and I’d like to tell you I was smart enough to write down or even remember where I compiled the information to create the date, but I’d rather not lie to your face as I’m writing).

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Writers across the world are currently knee deep in a challenge to produce a work of literature that is at least 50,000 words long and free of the bondage that comes with words like “quality”, “readability, and “style”.

My hat goes off to those people who heard the call and said “Challenge Accepted!” a la Barney Stinson. My hat also goes off to the writers who heard the call and said “No, sorry. I’m not going to do that to myself.”

In all honesty each choice is equally brave.

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This will be my last coherent post for the next….. 31 days. I'll still post on the same schedule, but I may have a unavoidably psychotic accent. Why is that? Because it's time. That time of the year when men and women who will forever call themselves "novelists" are forged in the ink of the written word, and are separated from the boys and girls still dreaming of such a day.

It's been on some people's calendars all year long (I'm a late comer to the game but a contestant all the same), but now it's here. No more time for talk. It's NaNoWriMo time. It's game time.

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