Taking the challenge : NaBloPoMo
November is National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo for semi-short. The idea is simple: post on your blog every day for the month of November.
I’m taking this challenge reasons that are probably unnecessarily complex. My brain seems to be full of ideas and goals that I never share or attempt. I think so much it hurts some days. I actually think in blog posts. What I mean by that is I organize and rethink random thoughts into sentences as if I were writing them down to explain to other people. I do this all the time and then never get the words out of my brain, even after I’ve already formatted them for publishing. And I continue to think these formatted thoughts for days or even weeks, fully intending to post them or write them out in some form, and then I never do. Which leaves me with a sense of failing somehow. I know that is pretty ridiculous, even as I type out this formatted thought. More than failing, on some existential level, its like the words are all crammed in my head and there is a finite amount of space, like a hard drive (yes, I’m a geek), and no new or at least good thoughts have room to form until I get these old stale ones out.
Another, more explainable reason to join this challenge is that I’d like to try to form a new, good habit. If I can get myself to blog every day for a month, maybe I’ll be able to convince myself to attempt and form even better habits, like going to the gym, or getting up on time and actually caring what I look like.
I know in the grand scheme of things that this doesn’t really mean anything, but I just want to try it.
I’m joining Nanette and Stacey in the list of bloggers I know who are participating. Sound like something you’d like to do? Sign-up for NaBloPoMo with Ning.com and then add me as a friend. Don’t want to participate as a writer but want to help me out? I will welcome any and all encouraging comments during November. Any feedback makes the words seem a little less just hanging out there.
Update: I just got this email from my mom. Apparently my mental state is genetic:
I apologize for your thought process - you can’t imagine how shocked I was when you posted this - you are so your mother’s child. The following statement from your blog is me exactly everyday, except instead of placing this information on a blog, in my brain I am always formatting this for an email, snail mail or just a document of my thoughts…I was going to add this as a comment on your blog, but wanted the words and thoughts to be perfect, so it is here only. Feel free to post if you see fit.
I listen to the Barnes & Noble “Meet the Writers” podcast. So many of the writers that they interview express something simliar to what you mention in this post. For those writers the intention of writing is therapy — to release the story, the thoughts, the insights that are otherwise bouncing around in their heads. Almost apologetically they all express that their writing is entirely selfish. Each writes for herself and simply invites others to join into her self-realization and personal therapy in the form of reading.