Today is the final day of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month, for those of you just joining us). Every day in the month of November, I have published a post on this here blog.
Well, every day except YESTERDAY.
It was one of those days. I woke up Saturday after about five hours and couldn’t fall back asleep. There were many dogs in my house, mine plus my stepfathers’ two. They are kind of ornery in the morning. I wasn’t feeling so hot, either, like I was still trying to fend off this cold I’ve been fending off for a couple of weeks.
So I declared it a Bum Day and rode the couch until 5-ish, when I took a shower and started to get ready to go out. Joe and I were meeting some friends for dinner. This double dating thing is new to us; we haven’t historically had a lot of couple friends. We were giddy, even though I was both exhausted and possibly getting sick.
Dinner was good and the companionship even better. We laughed a LOT. Even so, about an hour into it, I felt the telltale drip going down the back of my throat. The beginnings of a cough started rattling in my chest. Rut-ro.
After dinner I made Joe go to ShopRite with me to purchase the $1.29/lb. pork loin (the sale price ended yesterday). Y’all know I love my cheap meats. We also picked up some peppermint tea, because I knew – I ABSOLUTELY KNEW – sickness was coming.
At home I changed into my PJs and lay on the couch while Joe brewed me some of that tea. We started to watch another episode of How to Get Away with Murder (we were behind almost the whole season) and as soon as I was finished with the tea I promptly passed out. Joe nudged me awake and I crashed into bed, where I slept for nine solid hours, save one quick AM trip to the loo.
It was during that trip that I realized: I TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST SOMETHING YESTERDAY.
I wondered if I could post something after the fact and predate it, but that felt like cheating. I’m a lot of things, but a cheater isn’t one of them.
So, I failed…sort of.
I published 29 posts this month, including this one. They weren’t all winners, but they weren’t all lame, either.
Best of all, they got me over whatever mental block I’d been having about blogging again. Not every post has to be Important. They don’t all have to have perfect photos. Hell, sometimes you can skip the photo thing entirely. Guess what? World doesn’t end.
This challenge reminded me that blogging is, at the heart of it, about using your voice. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using it to pay tribute to loved one or deliver a mini-rant about processed foods – it just matters that you’re saying what you think, what you know, what you feel.
Now that the challenge is over, I likely won’t continue posting every day. I’ve got a novel to finish, yo, and daily blogging does cut into my limited writing time. But I’d like to keep posting 3-5 times a week, schedule permitting. It’s been fun. I’ve missed this.
And to all of the NaNoWriMo winners out there: congratulations! I don’t know if I could do the 50k words in 30 days thing. I don’t even know if I’m crazy enough to try. But I do admire your dedication. And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be cool enough to join your ranks.
Leave a Reply