It’s The Taking Part That Counts

It’s November.

November is a rubbish month.

All the shops are full of Christmas stuff but Christmas is still ages away.

It’s cold.

It’s dark.

I will probably be ill for at least some of this month.

It’s not that surprising that November is commandeered annually as a month in which to achieve formidable things like growing a moustache or writing a novel.

For yes, November is traditionally National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) when people are encouraged to write fifty thousand words in thirty days and thus achieve the awesome feat of writing (probably quite a bad) short novel. Really it should be called International Novel Writing Month given that people participate all over the world. But InNoWriMo isn’t as catchy as NaNoWriMo.

In a completely unrelated campaign, known as Movember, November is also the month in which some men go from having no facial hair to having a moustache in order to raise awareness of prostate cancer.

Writing a novel and growing a moustache both seem like admirable ways in which to help a miserable cold month pass by a little more pleasantly.

However I never participate in Movember. I’m not churlish, but as I ‘m rarely clean-shaven it seems preposterous to pretend that me having facial hair is going to raise awareness of anything other than the fact that I don’t shave very often.

NaNoWriMo is something I have attempted and failed at twice. If I were to attempt it this year I would also fail. I did succeed in writing quite a bad short novel over a two year period once but that’s not really the same thing. You can read it here if you haven’t got anything better to do.

Fortunately this year I have a blog and having a blog means I can participate in something other than NaNoWriMo and Movember. Something eminently achievable.

For November is also National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo (again I would argue that it should be International Blog Posting Month). To participate all I have to do is write a post every day for the entire month of November. Thirty posts in thirty days. Is that possible? Well yes. I did it in June. Frankly it’s not even a challenge.

And as I managed to post very little in October, it seems like a brilliant way of reviving my ailing blog.

As evidenced by this particular entry, not everything I write over the next month is going to be great.

But quality is not prerequisite of success in this scenario.