NaNoWriBloSoAlNoSloMo
First there was NaNoWriMo. Then there was NaSoAlMo, which is a pretty cool idea as well, although it kindof competes for conceptual space with FeAlWriMo, which may have preceded it. Then there was NaNoBloMo, but that's become NaBloPoMo, and I agree, that's kindof lame. It's like saying you can have Saturday or Sunday any time: it's technically true that you can take your day off and your day of spiritual contemplation and rest anytime. But having them on days reinforced by habit, tradition, and a community you're a part of makes it a lot easier to use them as you they're meant to be used. It's good to have a time for every purpose under heaven.
So it's November 1st. Which one am I going to pick?
NaNoWriMo... well, yeah, I do have an idea for a novel or two in me, but I don't particularly feel like I have one that's dying to get out. Last year I gave NaSoAlMo a shot, but realized partway through that frankly, I don't care for the goal of just producing "something" when it comes to music. I already know I can do that. And not only have I arguably been the world's flakiest not-blogger for the last four years, I'm still in the middle of a half-broken rewrite of the blogging software that I started three years ago, which replaced the perfectly functional blogging software I'd written from scratch previously.
Perhaps that's it. Perhaps this should be National Blog Software Writing Month for me. NaBloSoMo. Could be interesting.
I think, though, what I'm really after is the sense that I'm spending time on extracurricular creative efforts in general. A focus is nice, it helps you actually finish something, and that's something I should remind myself of. There's so many interesting things in the world and my talents are broad enough that I could (and often do) easily invest myself in starting more projects than I can finish.
But half the battle is just committing to put in time towards something that you care about instead of the thousand other "matters of consequence" and agenda items the rest of the world would rather you responded to first.
That's what I'm hoping to do this month. As it turns out, I'm also going to try to blog about it as a sort of accountability, but I'm less committed to blogging daily than I am to producing blog entries that account for daily efforts and accomplishments. Unfortunately, I've avoided blogging for so long that I likely don't have a readership that's going to hold me to account, but on the plus side, I don't have to be particularly entertaining.
We'll see how it works out. Maybe I'll even have comments again and we can have a conversation about it. :)