I once overheard my mother say to a friend, “We didn’t think Sherry would ever talk, and now we don’t think she’ll ever hush.” I have been a person of words for as long as I can remember. Although I didn’t talk until I was nearly three years old, I read at age four. As soon as I learned to scrawl letters on a primary tablet, I was writing. Reading words on a page was fun; putting my own words on a page was a wonder. From the time I wrote my first story during Christmas vacation (complete with illustrations from old Christmas card pictures I glued onto notebook paper), I was hooked.
Forty-odd years later, I still love words. I’m fortunate to have married a man who shares that love, which makes for some interesting times at our house (especially when the Jack Russel attempts to join in). Hubby has already been published, having several articles printed in scuba magazines. So, I wasn’t surprised when he mentioned one morning over coffee that he had signed up for a writing challenge. The goal is to write 50,000 words over the thirty days of November. With discipline and a daily routine of writing about 1,700 words, one could reasonably finish a novel in a month’s time. Intrigued, I went to the web site and read about the challenge. I already had two blogs I struggled to keep current. I even fall short of the annual Facebook “thirty days of Thanksgiving” well before thirty days have passed. Could I really write a book in the same amount of time? I was still toying with the idea when Hubby found a link to a thirty-day writing challenge for non-fiction writers. When I found that challenge to be a better fit to my writing style with more flexible guidelines and goals, I was all in.
Eagerness to begin and the desire to keep to the schedule we would follow on work days got us up early the first morning of November. After brief morning greetings and a stop at the coffee pot, we headed straight for our computers. Side by side in our comfy chairs, each of us began our challenge. We worked silently, enjoying the blissful quiet. The dog napped in his favorite spot, except for a brief trip to the kitchen for a bite of kibble and a drink of water.
About fifteen minutes into the second hour, our napping boy became restless and began to whimper a bit. Nelson never “talks” unless he wants something, or wants one of us to do something. I patted him gently and went on with my work. After another fifteen minutes or so, the whimpers became more frequent. Hubby patted him on the head and went back to his story line. Soon, the whimpers turned to whining, with the added effects of pacing back and forth across (and in front of) the love seat, accompanied by pointed glances toward the kitchen.
We got the message loud and clear.
Nearly every morning at our house, hubby cooks a breakfast after he has been up for awhile. He always shares with Nelson. Occasionally, he even makes extra so Nelson can have his own plate. Not unlike their humans, dogs are creatures of habit. Somebody was ready for his bacon and egg! We exchanged glances and finished our morning writing goals.
The whining stopped when Bob set aside his laptop. A very happy pup followed him into the kitchen.
The real benefit of the thirty-day writing challenge is developing the discipline to write regularly and stop putting off our goals until we have “more time.” Building that goal into our lifestyle will without doubt necessitate some changes in our daily routine. Getting up at 6:15 on a chilly Saturday morning is a good example of such a change.
Apparently, delaying breakfast by an hour is not.