Spinning Plates on Sticks

I just realized that it’s been almost a month since I’ve written here and there are actually few people who still subscribe to this blog who may be wondering WHY they do, given that there is clearly nothing happening here.

I’ve been seriously considering blank-slating this blog and starting all over because I don’t think I can, in all honesty, live up to its initial promise, which was to provide “inspiration.”

I’ve been re-reading some of my more recent posts and this is not an “inspiration location” AT ALL.   Quite the contrary.  But that is a discussion for another day.  All I wanted to do today is account for my absence to my loyal readers.  (Who I appreciate, thank and love.)

As you know, I am into streaks, and keeping streaks going.  And once I have a streak going, it’s like spinning a plate on a stick: I have to keep tending to it, because come hell or high water, I do not want to break that streak. I do not want that plate to crash. And I will organize my whole life around seeing that that streak stays in tact.

Before November began, I had 2 streaks going: 750 words, and a daily yoga/meditation practice.  Both of these plates are still spinning strong, by the way. Today was Day 355 of 750 words, which is 10 days shy of a whole year without a miss, and Day 50 for the yoga/meditation, which isn’t a lot, but that streak is getting a strong foundation under it.

But as every juggler knows, it’s no trick at all to juggle two balls. It’s only when you add the third ball that it becomes legitimate “juggling.”

So in November, in a moment of insanity, I added my “third ball” or, as I prefer to think of it, my third “spinning plate.” On November 1st I joined “National Novel Writing Month” aka “NaNoWriMo.”  I wanted to see if I could use this annual crazy competition to fuel myself enough to finish the book I have been dinking around with for, perhaps, EVER.

I wanted to see if I could just stay with the damned thing and see it through to some END.

Just to see.

Just to see if I had anything. Just to see if I could not fink out on it because I was bored or frustrated, or because it read like a dog’s dinner.

Because believe me, this inchoate thing that is half inside my brain and half hanging out of it, is a bloody mess.  I wanted to see if I could crank out 50K words on the same topic, in the space of 30 days, just to once and for all, DO IT.  Could I reach a finish line? Maybe not THE finish line, but SOME finish line?

So, that’s why I’ve not been posting here. I’ve been writing. I am also, in the process, trying to learn Scrivener, which if nothing else comes of this, I think I have found a really amazing and kickass piece of software that I am completely loving as a tool to organize and work on different pieces at the same time.

But I have to confess.  As I sit here now, writing this post, I am so very close to be being on the verge of NOT MAKING IT. I am woefully behind in my word count (to make this manageable, you should write 1,667 words a day, every day and I have not been doing that.)  I don’t even know how far behind I am, actually. I am afraid to look.  At this point I am just trying to pound out words whenever my schedule opens up.

So, that’s why I haven’t been here.  And why I won’t be here until December.

But thanks for checking in, and I promise to report back on how things turned out. I have 10 days to go. Miracles can happen, and sadly, I think that’s what it’s going to take.

Wish me luck.