ManicDDaily

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about centenarians, the qualities that enable people to endure.

The wording of that last sentence probably illustrates why it will be hard for me to ever make this rarified group.  The operative word was “endure;”  my sense is that many centenarians look at life as something to be enjoyed rather than endured.

I, in contrast, always remember walking by a parking lot in Greenwich Village on a cold night in which everyone’s mortality was clearly visible in the fog made by their breath.  A guy in front of me shouted up the ramp: “come on already, life’s too short to enjoy it!”

This struck me not as a motto to aspire to, but as one that ManicDDaily types seem to be stuck with.

(Sorry, don’t mean to whine!)

The point is that some of us worry, kvetch, dither, all in between activities that we think of as “work” even though they are completely unremunerative and done in our free time.

Which brings me to the month of November!  November is National Novel Writing Month–Nanowrimo!  I stick in the exclamation point because I really hope to persuade myself to do it this year.  The goal is to produce a novel or 50,000 words (whichever comes first) in the month of November.

I confess to having done Nanowrimo successfully (in the sense that I produced the words), a couple of past years, but I find the whole prospect a bit scary right now.   I’m hoping that if I make the commitment publicly, I will gain a little bit of extra “sticktuitiveness”.

I’m also hoping to keep this blog going during November by posting sections of an old Nanowrimo novel.  It’s a bit rough, but I’m hoping again that if I announce this idea  (publicly) I can garner the commitment to finish one more re-write.

Which brings me to another tool for blocking writer’s block.  Give yourself a goal!  Publicly!

And, if you kick yourself later, keep that old ManicDDaily teaching in mind:  “life’s too short to enjoy it.”