100 Days

Back in November 2010 when talking (read: making excuses) about why I couldn’t do NaNoWriMo, a friend told me about NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month.

NaBloPoMo (the link is over there to the right of my picture if you’re interested) was a challenge to write 30 blog postings during the month of November. I thought 30 blog postings sounded like a lot considering where I was starting from, but it also seemed a small enough committment (and it helped relieve the NaNoWrieMo guilt) that I was able to put my skepticism aside long enough to sign up.

Before November 2010 my blog postings were few and far between. Most of the stuff I posted here were stories and poems for feedback/critique, but nothing that I would really consider “blog posts” or anything that would earn me a label of “blogger”. I was leery about completing the 30 posts in 30 days, but I gave it a try. The experience was a lot of fun and as it turned out I made it through the 30 days and I also met some interesting people, and read some really good blogs, in the process which has been the best part of the whole experience for me.

Those who know me might be tempted to say that I have a little bit of a compulsive nature and they wouldn’t be wrong. On December 1st, 2010, I felt like I didn’t want to stop just because the 30 days of NaBloPoMo was over. I felt like I was on a writing roll and I didn’t want to stop, so I didn’t. I blogged every day through December and I watched the consecutive days of blog postings pile up. Writing something every day was a new experience for me and I liked it. I kept on blogging into January.

About three weeks ago I was thinking that I’m not doing any other writing other than the blog posts. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not exactly what I want to be doing. I have some short stories and poetry that I want to get back to working on and finish up and I want to start submitting them for publication, so I decided that maybe I need to cut back on the daily blogging and get back to concentrating on that other stuff. Where to stop? my compulsive self asked. I’d racked up quite an impressive (by my estimation) of consecutive days blogging and thinking about breaking that streak felt strange. But I also couldn’t just keep on blogging for no other reason than trying to keep a consecutive days writing streak running, so last week I decided that today would be the last day I feel I have to blog everyday because today is the 100th consecutive day I’ve blogged since November 1, 2010. I thought 100 seemed like a nice number to stop on.

If you’re wondering why I don’t do both, blog while working on other stuff, I don’t have an answer for you. I think it’s just that the feeling that I have to blog every day that I don’t like. I won’t stop blogging altogether because I like it, and American Idol is about to start and how can I not talk about that?!, I just don’t want to feel like I need to blog. I don’t know if that makes sense or not.

About writing other stuff, I posted about this the other day, but I do have a short story that was recently published. The title of the story is Showdown at Diablo Flats and the story was a finalist in the Moonlight Mesa Associates 2010 “Cowboy Up” Short Story Contest. If you like Western short stories and want to purchase a copy (I don’t make anything from sales), the anthology is for sale through the publisher and through Amazon.com. Hopefully, one day in the not-to-distant future, I’ll be able to share here that another short story, or poem, has been published somewhere. I know it’ll happen, I’m just not exactly sure about when.

Already I’m thinking that 100 days is such a long time and how can I not continue it!

See you tomorrow!

No! Stop thinking!

Crazy. . .

This last song below doesn’t really keep with the theme, but I love Mary Travers’ voice. Can you listen to this song and not sing along? I suppose if you didn’t know the words you wouldn’t be able to sing along, but assuming you did know the words, or had the words there in front of you?