It's November! The Writing Month!

A couple of years ago I took on the challenge of writing a book (or 50,000 words) in the month of November. The same friend who posted the information about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) then posted a link today to a website that has a NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).  The challenge here is to write a blog post every day during the month. In spite of the fact that I can’t imagine how I can come up with something interesting every day, I’m going to give it a whirl. When I signed up for NaNoWriMo, I at least had an idea in mind – something I had been thinking about writing for a few years.  50,000 words was a daunting task but I made it - the nice thing about blogging is that the post doesn’t have to be long so I don’t have to stress about word count.

The website offers daily prompts in case a participating blogger is short on ideas that day.  Today’s prompt is “What is your favourite part about writing?” (they used the British “favourite” so I had to use it too!)  My favorite part about writing is the actual act of doing it. That means that I’ve taken time for myself to do something that is meaningful to me. It means that I’ve actually put down on paper the things that all too often just stay in my head. 

I think about writing all the time. When I’m in church and the scripture or the sermon touches me in some way. When I’m at work and I see something that strikes me as funny or even sad. Once, 18 or so years ago, I was on my way home from Chicago. I took the train to the airport and there was the really strange guy on the train. I got to the airport with three or so hours to spare so I sat and wrote a story about him. I mean I wrote FURIOUSLY. And it was so gratifying that I remember it very clearly. (If only I could remember where I put the story. I know it’s somewhere in this house. Maybe my challenge for next month will be to find it.)

But I live in the balcony (see my first post if you want to know what that means). And living the balcony means that I have to really focus because there are distractions everywhere – and I’m more susceptible to distractions than your average bear. So for me, NaBloPoMo will be a challenge, but one that I expect I’ll enjoy immensely. Hopefully anyone who reads it might enjoy it as well.