Measured

Today is Half-Way-Day in WriMo land.

Translation:  By the end of the day, the novel draft should be 25,000 words or more.

I've hit a rocky writing stretch, mostly just because I've been letting life win a little.  Somehow having a family of 7 down with an ugly stomach virus will just manage to derail you a bit.  Add in other actual life stuff and you suddenly think, what book?  I was doing something else?

I told you all this yesterday so it isn't news.

What is news is that I did find my way back.

I talked to my friends, my regular friends, my writer friends and so on.  I read some Pep Talks(see NaNoWriMo) and some quasi-self-help books.

Here's what I learned.

There are simply two kinds of people on this Earth.  You know this.  Some do, some don't.

That's all.

Honestly.

That's all.

That's all there is.  It really is that stupid simple.

The people that make art or finish marathons or do the things that leave us in awe aren't magical.  They aren't in possession of something amazing.

Yes, there are people that are super gifted and have a great talent, but think about it, just for a second, think about it.

They work at it.  They practice it.  They strive.  They fail.  They try again.

Those people are amazing because they simply don't quit.

It's true.  That's all they do different.

When it gets hard, they keep going.  When they don't want to anymore, they go again.  When the circumstance of life piles up on them, they say ok, that's happening and then find a way to keep working.

Whatever is their thing, writing, running, music, business, whatever, it is an integral part of their make up, of who they are.  They do it with passion, with routine, with the knowledge of the experience that doing it today when it's hard and unpleasant and seemingly hopeless will pay off in the tomorrows yet to come, or at least in the hope of those tomorrows.

It would be cool to be an overnight sensation, but it's not real.  Lot's and lot's of working nights came before the single overnight they became a known sensation.  And news flash, they were a sensation before that too, and they remain so after.  It's us who are fickle about fame, and is fame a measure?

When it's really "your thing" the two F's ( fortune and fame) aren't the motivators.

When it's your thing, you work at it, sometimes to the point that you forget that you began with this thing because it was a part of your joy in life.  It was something that delighted you, something that soothed you, something that keeps your brain from stagnating.

Your measure is not your novel on the best seller list, your CD top of the charts, or your painting hanging in the Louvre.  Not that these wouldn't be fantastic and aren't good goals, they are.

Your measure is did you quit.

Here We Go Again

Tomorrow is September.  School starts.  The unofficial season changes.  I pick up things I've left on the back burner.  I start to day dream about the next round of NaNoWriMo.

One of the best ways for me to "prep" for the NaNo is to do a few months of NaNoBloMo, so get ready.  Find those reading glasses you left in the bottom of the pool bag.  Take 5 minutes of tea time to see for yourself what I eye-spy this month with NaNoBloMo.

See you tomorrow to start looking at life.

It's Almost Here

I'm excited.
 Not prepared, but excited just the same.
NaNoWriMo is just a few short days away. I'm really excited to do it again. It was a challenge and a good experience.
 And now that's it's been a year, my family might even say so too! I've been getting ready by doing a number of different things.
One of those was doing the NaBloPoMo for the last few months. I'm going to try to continue it in November while doing the NaNo.
I tried to do some of the more practical things for getting my family ready. I have the laundry up to date. I have a menu plan for the month of November. We built into the budget for the nights I forget about food and we have to eat take out. I have my book idea and my characters sketched out.
I had wanted to have an outline and plenty of details prepared, but I don't. I had wanted to fill my freezer with meals to make the food part of the month easier.

NaBloPoMo is focused on Return this month and I'm working hard to meet the daily challenge.  Mostly I'm taking the challenge this month to get back on the blogging train and get back in the daily writing habit.  It's good for me and make the NaNoWriMo easier in November.

Today's prompt is about home decor.  If you could return the decorations in a room of your home what would that be?

A truly silly question for me because I don't have any rooms in my home "decorated." 

I'm on my second house and am finally getting the walls painted something other than Realtor white.  Even that is slow going.  I'm lazy and hire The Drummer, Chicklet's little brother, to do the work for me.  He does excellent work, but I'm not in much of a rush to get it done, so usually a room gets painted when he's looking for some cash.

My house has never been "decorated".  Once in my life, while apartment dwelling and before kids, I tried to do the home decor thing.  I went to those home shows and bought the stuff.  I hung it up and so I guess in a way it was decorated, but it kind of felt like playing house instead of me. 

My rooms now are all just filled up with the things that flavor our lives.  Each one of us has our "stuff" that reflects our passions and who we are. That stuff is dispersed through the house in a sort of random cluttered up lived in way. 

I hope our home is welcoming and warm, even with it's stuff.  I hope that people come to see us and not our mess.  I like to believe it's a normal mess.  Toddler toys and a little dog fur.  Sports equipment and book stacks.  Drawings and princess dolls.  Computers and journals and coffee cups.  Pens.  Our home is covered in pens. 

Between writers and artists, we are covered in pens and pencils and markers and crayons and anything that could possibly write or draw or mark paper.  We are also a paper family.  We love our paper.  For drawing and printing and writing.  There are piles of papers and drawings scattered everywhere.  There are stacks of journals and notebooks and legal pads, all with ideas sketched in them.  There are prayer journals and personal journals and Bible journals. 

Then there are the books.  Shelves of books.  Stacks of books.  Books in chests and drawers and cabinets.  Books under chairs and on top of the fridge. 

I guess in a way, we do have decor.  It's just not a home magazine kind of decor.  It's more of a snap shot of who are family is than a style we'd like to show off. 

I'd love to say I envy other people's homes that are decorated just so, or that I look at those magazines and think oh, I want my house to look like that, but sadly, no.  I don't even really notice. Once in a while I might notice your furniture, but more often than not, I can't tell you a thing about your house, not even what color it was inside the room.  I just don't have eyes for that sort of thing.  I could tell you if it was cozy or not, warm or cold, dark or light.  I could tell you if there was a smell or how I felt being in that room, but I couldn't tell you if your end tables matched or all your furniture was the same style.  I couldn't tell you what was on the walls or windows. 

I'm strange that way. 

I guess in the end, I wouldn't return anything about my home, because my home is where my family is who they are, and I like them just as they are.

Reader/Writer Notes

Today's first post is a sort of notes for readers post.

First, welcome my Daddy to the world of blogging.  Go check him out at Scuttlebutt-Jim .

He jumped on the blog wagon because I challenged him to do the NaBloPoMo with me in September.  Remember, the NaBloPoMo is simply a split off of the NaNoWriMo and BlogHer that encourages and challenges you to blog daily for one month.  It runs every month and offers up a prompt 6 days a week.  On that 7th day, you're actually on your own.  You can follow the prompt or write whatever you like.  It's simple to register over at NaBloPoMo and then leave your blog on the blog roll.  It's a great way to find new blogs to read and a great way to get some new readers.

The NaNoWriMo is fast approaching and I'd love to see you join the challenge with me.  It's a short novel in one month.  You will write 50,000 words in the month of November.  Work on your character sketches and out lines now.  Break it down into 30 steps and then check one off every day of November and bam! by December 1st, you've written a whole novel.  Yup.  It really is that easy. 

I'll be back with today's actual post for the challenge later.  First I have some very important, the kids are all at school, grown up stuff to do, like have coffee with one of my Peeps!  A girls got to have priorities.  Can I get an Amen Sister?

See YOU later!