State of the NaBloPoMo Address

My fellow Voxers (and on the off-chance someone outside of Vox is reading this, anyone else),

State of the NaBloPoMo?

Today is the 16th day of November, and the 16th consecutive day that I've posted something to this blog for my participation in NaBloPoMo.  That means I'm now officially halfway through this effort.  After this post, I'll have 14 more posts to put up here to satisfy the requirements of posting at least once a day for the entire month of November.  2 weeks of posts.

It's been hard.  Harder than I thought it would be.  Partially because I've taken it upon myself to not do this thing at a level of quality lower than that of my blog posts at any other time of year.  Sure, I could post a song, or a photo, or even a 2-line entry and satisfy the requirements, but I've tried to make sure that the things I've posted have had some real meat to them.  Yes, some days are lighter than others, but on average, I think my entries have been on the order of 500-800 words long, and have taken some real time for me to brainstorm, compose, write, and revise/edit.  Most of it gets done in the evenings after the rest of my family goes to sleep, which has seriously cut into my book-reading and TV-watching time.  Not that I'm complaining - I think writing for this blog is more personally rewarding and more entertaining than either of those two things.  But it is a difficult effort to dredge up material from the creative center of my brain day after day and find enough energy to pull it together into a cohesive post.

I'm still planning on finishing this puppy.  At the beginning of the month, I brainstormed a potential list of topics to write about over the month, and when inspiration doesn't hit me (which is a lot of evenings), I go to the list for that day's topic.  Some of them I'll probably never get to during November, and others I can't wait to write about but they're going to need to wait until my vacation around Thanksgiving to allow for the time commitment I require for those entries.  But hopefully my list will keep me going through until that big 11/30 date.

I look at the people that are participating in NaNoWriMo this year and are writing around 1500+ words a day for the entire month, and I just feel my jaw drop with the impressive feat they're undertaking.  Although writing a novel is something I intend to do at some point in the future (maybe once the kids are grown up and out of the house??), there's no way I could pull down that kind of time commitment to the task right now.  Heck, I'm stretching it even trying to hack half that word count per day!  Granted, if I was writing for NaNoWriMo, I probably wouldn't be spending the time I am revising/editing, but still, that's quite an undertaking, and one I have a lot of respect for.

Oh, and I'm not trying to bash anyone who is participating in NaBloPoMo but is NOT writing epic-length posts every day.  I think the most important point to both NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo is to get in the habit and schedule of writing on a regular basis, so you can work to keep this up after the month is over.  If you are creating something and posting something every day, you're accomplishing that goal, regardless of the length of your post.  Since the posts I like to write are about this length, I felt I needed to maintain this level of effort over the NaBloPoMo time frame in order to have it actually help me in my effort to start posting more often.

Looking at my post count for this year (currently at 141), I'm down to well under half of what I did in 2007 (370).  Part of that, of course, is from my new baby girl, and now that she's almost a year old and starting to be a little easier to manage, I'm getting back into having more time to write.  I don't necessarily feel a need to write and post an entry every day of the year in 2009, but I'd like to keep up a certain level of quality in my posts without it taking me 3-4 days to get an entry posted.

Anyway, for those of you reading this, those of you who have been reading my last 15 days of posts, and those who occasionally read what I post here on Vox, thanks for sticking with me and providing me with an audience.  I don't always have an audience in mind when I write something, but when I need one, you folks are always there to support me, and I really appreciate that.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go work on another NaBloPoMo entry.  I have a feeling this week is going to be a rough one, and I need to get a head start on some of these posts...

NaBloPoMo 2008!

[NaBloPoMo 2008 - #16/30]