It’s the last day of September, and that means all of my excuses I’ve been using to procrastinate this month are going to dissappear. Of course, it won’t really take me long to find a new excuse to do nothing, but for now, I’m feeling hopeful and productive, so it’s time to start putting together the plans for my big project for October, things I need to get out of the way before NaNoWriMo pops up, man, it’s already just around the corner.
First The Easy Part – My Body
I’ve done really well this year, and have managed to loose quite a bit of weight (the exact number of course fluctuates), and better, I’ve lost several inches from my waist. The big problem now, though, is that for the most part it has been diet that has done the burning for me and this has left me, well, saggy, for lack of a better term. I think people call it “flappy with loose skin.” The worse part, though, is I know I’m making strides towards being healthy, but I still can’t keep up with most of the boffer fighters on the field, and that’s a matter of building stamina. Nothing builds stamina like running.
That’s why I’ve decided to start the Couch-to-5k running plan. My dad is even planning on joining me, so if I start to slack off, I’ll have someone to mock me back into doing my work.
I figure if I can train my body to run for 30 minutes, then surely I’ll be able to fight for an hour straight, or longer. That’s just a matter of spending time on the treadmill, though, so it should be the easy part.
The Hard Part – Creating Something Big
Over the course of the last year, I’ve written over 200,000 words for this blog. By NaNoWriMo standards, that’s like 4 novels. I’ve toyed around with the idea of writing a book now for a long time, but I haven’t actually pushed myself to doing it. Part of that is because I’ve gotten pretty heavily out of the habit of writing fiction, and it’s a hard muscle to get worked back into shape, but the other side of that is because I’m a chronic procrastinator.
I come to accept lately that a good book doesn’t have to mean fiction, and that non-fiction doesn’t have to mean a ton of research. It was during one of my many mental ramblings that I remembered reading a great book by Drew Carey entitled [amazon_link id=”078688939X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined[/amazon_link]. It was semi-autobiographical, but it wasn’t really about that, and it had some short stories, but they weren’t the bread and butter of the book either.
It was just a collection of his writing, essays and stories. Something he really wanted to share, and it was an amazing read (pick it up and pour it through your mind rivers if you have a chance, it is pretty great).
The idea that I don’t have to hammer out 50-80,000 words of one continuous thought really appeals to my ADD riddled brain, and the fact that writers like Dave Barry and Scott Adams have found some success with it, makes me very hopeful for myself.
Chuck Wendig recently put out a list of 25 Things Writer Should Know, and it struck a cord with me, especially #5:
Speaking Of Luck
Luck matters. It just does. But you can maximize luck. You won’t get struck by lightning if you don’t wander out into the field covered in tinfoil and old TV antennae.
It made me realize that I was waiting for that lightning to hit me, but I was doing so in an insulated safety suit, in a secret underground bunker with walls made out of rubber. I think it’s time I go flagpole-dancing naked in the rain swinging my crowbar high and unruly…
…at least metaphorically speaking.