A Musing Mom Speaks

When I saw this sign on our vacation last month I was tempted to buy it. How true, huh?

Well, that was more than a month ago. And you might be thinking that since I'm 18 days into my noveling frenzy that it would be truer than ever. I've spent tens of hours at my computer and typed more than 73 single-spaced pages, totalling over 30,000 words. I've downed dozens of cups of hot chocolate (sorry, coffee makes me edgy late at night) and scribbled notes on stacks of index cards. I'm on track to finish at least a 50,000-word novel by November 30th.

So it would be so easy right now to play on your sympathy and tell you how my children are starved for attention, my freezer is empty and the dust bunnies are growing in greater numbers than my word count. I could act like my wrists are screaming in pain from carpal tunnel and my back is aching from hunching over my computer. I could moan about the rigors of dealing with uncooperative characters and plot holes as big as Manhattan.

But it would all be a lie (okay, so my whole left arm is inflamed and the fingers on my left hand occasionally feel numb, plus the dust bunny part is kinda true). Over the past eighteen days I've fed my children and gotten them off to school, cooked, cleaned, done laundry, been on two radio interviews and done two speaking engagements, hung out with friends and... Well, I've pretty much done everything I'd normally be doing. Then instead of spending my evenings reading a book, playing solitaire or getting beat at some game by my husband, I've retreated to my den and spent an hour and a half writing. Add in some bigger chunks of writing on the weekend and it totals up to over 30,000 words so far.

Think about it: how many goals or tasks have you seen as so monumental that you never even attempted them? How many things could you achieve if you committed yourself to baby steps every day? I'm beginning to see that probably many of life's big accomplishments were reached though a series of regular everyday baby steps.

What's your big dream? What's your next goal? And what will you do today and the day after that and the day after that until you achieve it?

Me? I'm going to keep on setting my rear on my chair in the den for the next twelve days in hopes of crossing the NaNo finish line. When I get there I plan to have a celebration - it just won't be at my house. Too many dust bunnies for that.