The River

November. 2009 is almost gone. A year ago, I had just gotten a positive pregnancy test. A mountain of suitcases stood in our living room ready for our imminent departure for Saipan. I was still on the uphill to forty, now I've tipped over the peak and started gaining momentum for the downward slide.

I read once that time is like a river. At first it seems to flow slowly, all is new, the banks drift by and you have time to stare at them in wide-eyed wonder. As you travel downstream, it gains momentum, the current quickens, the landscape flashes by faster and faster and you barely have time to glance up. You are focused on navigation. Like anything, I think it's all about perspective. When you are four and a year is one-fourth of your entire existence, it's a really long time. But, every year it shortens. A sixteenth. A twenty-fifth. By the time a year is one thirty-sixth point five of your life, it doesn't seem like a long time at all.

November is National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I have things I want to do in my life that I keep putting off. I mention that I want to write a silly, sexy romance novel, but I don't. I delay. I procrastinate. I make excuses. I make dinner. We make babies. I go to preschool board meetings. I wallow in my busy, happy days. The only thing I don't make is progress on this dream. So, here I go. The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write 50,000 words before midnight on November 30 without self flagellation, without doubt, without deleting or reworking. In other words, it can be as crappy as...it ends up being. The goal of National Blog Posting Month is to post every day for thirty days.

I'm going to try to meet both goals. In fact, I hope I've woven them together so tightly, here and in my mind, that I'll be too embarrassed, too shamed and too public to quit.

Garth Brooks says that a dream is like a river.

Don't you sit upon the shoreline and say you're satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids, dare to dance the tide.

Wish me luck, I'm a terrible sailor. I get sea sick on Ferris wheels.

Uh huh, I like cheesy country music. No. Rephrase. I LOVE cheesy country music. Mock me quickly, I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November because, for the love of God, I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. Just visit maybe? Think about me once in a while? My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.

I may post my word count. Maybe every day. Maybe once a week. I don't know. We'll see whether there are any words to count first and how badly the count sucks.

The heroine is Emily. Her hero is Eddie. Send them travelers' mercies, they are in for a rough ride.

E&E Tally: One completed outline
Blog posts: 1/30

(I freaked out ten minutes after I posted this post and went to pull it, but Heather had already commented because she's awesome. It stays up, but I'm not sure about the posting every day in November thing. I might end up posting once a week, which is business as usual. I'm telling you that 50% of this post is most likely a lie. Don't trust me, I'm fickle.)