Soul stretching

Please, stand up and stretch.

Whatever I take on in my life, I know that I will be stretched beyond what I normally know myself to be. I started NaNoWriMo because really it’s a long shot. It’s not just about writing that novel and the word count. It’s about the practice of being human. Doing NaNoWriMo is not a “life challenge”, it doesn’t matter if I do it or not. But to master the game of life, there is practice needed. And NaNoWriMo is that kind of practice.

• First it is a stretch from what I would normally do. Meaning that I would not write every day, I would even skip a few weeks sometimes.
• Second there is a structure in place. 30 days, about 1667 words per day.
• Third, you can have partners. I don’t know of any big thing in life that you can do alone, without support or encouragement. Doing it alone, takes more time and you suffer…

What really matters to me is sharing my stories through writing. And share them in this beautiful format called a book. For me, this is a life challenge. To achieve that I will need to stretch myself beyond what I normally do : getting stopped by an inner conversation about, if what I’m writing is really good material for a book. I will need a structure: when do I edit, correct and send my stuff to a publisher. Create a schedule and stick to it. I will need partners, to support and encourage me, kick my behind, when I go back to normal and, celebrate with me every success.

So, NaNoWriMo is practice. And after 2 day, even my soul is being surgically cut open and stretched out. Yesterday, I just saw myself entering into the dark corners of my mind and start the red tape on being alone, not good enough and so on. No surprise there was no excited blog post yesterday about starting NaNoWriMo.

I wrote the word count for first day. 1688 words. YEA!

I am about to start Day 2, with utmost humility, if I should say. I started the story, not where I planned and it was just like vomiting cliché after cliché… I got finally to something useful at the last paragraph. So I’m going back, head up, breathing peacefully, knowing that it is practice. And at the gym, before the muscles are well develop and strong, you have to go back again and again and stretch.

With great respect and love!

A.