I procrastinate a lot. I mean, seriously a lot. Most people can’t tell though because I don’t procrastinate by playing games or reading (although sometimes I wish I did). No, I procrastinate by finding a new task to do. In fact, I have completed some fairly complex projects through procrastination. This may not seem like a problem to you, but I have pushed a couple of deadlines because I was too busy procrastinating to work on the actual work I was supposed to be doing.
This past year I tried building a blogging habit by participating in the WordCount blogathon. I succeeded in the challenge of blogging every day for a month. But as soon as the challenge was over, I quickly slipped back into my once a week blogging habits. But blogging is only one piece of the writing I have to do. Clearly I need a more inclusive challenge.
November is National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo. The NaNoWriMo challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That calculates out to roughly 1,600 words a day. If that sounds like a lot, it is because it is. Nevertheless, I am taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge this year. Whew. I had to take a deep breath just writing that sentence.
Actually, I am taking on the DigiWriMo challenge because I know I don’t have a novel in me. Before anyone asks how I know, I know because when I made a film in high school (for which I won an award, thank you very much) I ended up making it a silent film because dialogue was too much of a struggle for me. So instead of writing a novel, I am planning on writing the tips and tricks and instruction manuals that I have been putting off for months. I am also planning on blogging the process. Apparently I need the prospect of publicly airing my failure to keep me on track.
But wait, there’s more. I am taking on this challenge knowing that I will be spending the first week of November in New York visiting family. Some might see DigiWriMo as an excuse to escape family and write. But my family includes my extremely energetic 5 year old niecelettes. Niecelettes that I adore so much that I try to spend every waking minute with them. Not only do I exhaust myself while I am there, my visits leave me physically and emotionally exhausted for a week or so after I return.
I better end this post now before I talk myself out of the DigiWriMo challenge. Stay tuned.