Never Give Up, Never Surrender

I have no idea what to write about today. That happens most days. I stare at this blank page, and hope that some reasonably intelligent, insightful collection of words will magically appear. Sometimes they do. Sometimes, I have to take a bunch of boring, vapid words, and shove them all together until they sound intelligent and insightful.

So why keep doing it? Why not quit, now that I've run out of things to say? Why not just give up on the whole thing? The same reason I keep doing everything I do.

Because I said I would.

I said, I'm going to keep writing this blog, and not get bored and abandon it like every other journal I've tried to keep. I said, I'm going to finish this degree even though I could be doing something better with my time. I said, I'm going to keep this summer job until the end of the season. I said, I'm going to work on my Russian every day.

I said, I'm going to write a novel.

They say, you can do anything you put your mind to. Really, you can do anything you don't immediately give up on, even though it might be hard and take up a lot of your free time. But that doesn't roll off the tongue as smoothly.

If, for instance, you want to write a novel, then just… do it. Tell yourself you will, and then don't let yourself down. But you don’t have time. You have work, and a family, and a social life. I only have, like, one of those things, so what do I know? I did manage to write two 50,000 word behemoths while being a full-time student with a part-time job. Point is, you can always make time, if you really want to. NaNo is 1,667 words per day. That's really not a lot. Especially if you have a general idea of what you want to write before you write it. I usually don't. But I write anyway.

Because I said I would.

So maybe you don't want to write a novel. You don’t want to be me with over a dozen rough drafts. That's fine. But is there something you want to do? Something you've always said "someday" to? Maybe today's the day to get started. Pick a goal, make a plan, and stick to it.

Because you said you would.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to come up with some semblance of a plot for my novel. And once NaNo starts, you'll be able to watch my word count progress over on the right side of the screen.