To Write:  You Are More Than You Know
K Wordbird Bate  The Writing Coach

    Today I’m going to share two exciting things: the first is my YOU WON icon I earned in November, by writing 50,000 words. Look at that. I am amazed and pleased I won that. I am darn surprised, and happy.

     I wrote an Inspiration inviting you to sign up. You can see it here in my Inspirations pages. Now, I’m counting you in for next November. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was a journey of fun, fatigue, silliness, challenge, and letting others harass and encourage me into doing something I was pretty sure I couldn’t do.

     “Life” fills up our time. The idea of giving our creativity and passion a bulk of our time is something we consistently put off. There just “isn’t time,” we say. Yes, that is true! If we don’t make the time, it isn’t there. Yet we do make choices every minute, about how to spend our time. I do not want to be one of those people who sits in the Old Lady rocker thinking back on all the things I didn’t do. No, I want to smile to myself or tell my best friend about this time and that time I went ahead and invested in myself, my passion, and the richness of my life.  I’ll have completely forgotten I didn’t keep up with the laundry for a little while or I skipped some obligations I thought I “had” to do.  

     I signed up for NaNoWriMo, and as you see, I achieved. The process took me all kinds of places I didn’t expect, and I almost gave up a couple of times. But what a rewarding experience!! I know a few of you signed up, and I hope it was incredible for you, too. It is just one of millions of possible life experiences you can create for yourself. It is time! Sign up. Get started. Do that thing your heart yearns to do. College and community classes, and writing programs, are just opening up for sign-up, for instance.

     I’d like you to take out your new beautiful 2009 Calendar, or your day-at-a-glance, right now, and write NaNoWriMo.org into October. In October, you announce to everyone that you are going to do this, go to the site, take a deep breath, and jump in. You’re going to write 50,000 words or bust, next November. Yes, you can! You can have a really good time trying, at least.

     Sometimes words are written so well, the best thing to do is share what is said, rather than try to say it any better. The Founder of NaNoWriMo wrote these exciting, beautiful words, and I hope you will read, think about and then make changes based on them. Right now, today.   

“…Hobbies become something we swear we'll get back to when we have more time. Or when the kids are grown. Or when the stock market recovers.

Which means we leave unexplored many of those paths that ultimately make us feel most alive—the moments of creating, building, playing, and doing that lead to extraordinary and unexpected things. 

Like writing a book. 

Or, more loosely, postponing the must-dos of the real world to spend 30 days exploring an attractive, improbable dream.

Giving ourselves that time is so important. Because the world can wait. It's what the world does best, in fact…  

…Our dreams, however, have much shorter shelf-lives.  

If there's one thing I've learned from running NaNoWriMo, it's this: Whatever you think you are, you are more than that. You possess a fearsome array of skills and abilities, and the most satisfying of these may be completely unknown to you now. Your curiosity is a dependable guide; follow it. Put yourself in unfamiliar places. Kindle passions. Savor the raw joy of making things, and then remake the best of those things until they take someone's breath away. Wrestle bears.  

Actually, skip the bear-wrestling.  

But do keep trying big things, okay? Sometimes we can wait so long for a clear sign that it's time to begin, that the opportunity sails right past us. 

Life is so short. Adventures beckon….Chris.