This may be a bit ambitious, but National Novel Writing Month is nearly upon us. I haven’t participated in quite a few years, due to various reasons starting with “B” and rhyming with “wenji,” but I’m considering participating this year.

Anyway, like I said, ambitious — because I’m thinking of setting a goal of writing 1660 words a day through the month of November. I don’t have any story ideas, and I’m not even sure that I’d be writing a cohesive story or even anything related day to day, but I’m a little interested to see if (a) I can do it; and (b) what might come out of that. Do I even still have any new ideas?

Sometimes it feels like life is an endless series of doing what I have to, punctuated by a few instances of recovery and even fewer instances of actual personal enjoyment. I haven’t built a ton of room for creative thinking into my life at this point, but we do spend most evenings watching an episode of something on Netflix. What if I took that time and did something else with it? Would I feel like I’d spent my time more productively?

I may find out, or I may just find that it doesn’t work for me to have to discipline myself to do yet one more thing.

But I just remember that I did really enjoy NaNoWriMo in the past, not because I produced anything good (definitely can’t make that claim!) but just because I accomplished something. That might be a nice thing to try for again.

Also filed under “creative” in my life, Benji now has us drawing custom dot-to-dot puzzles for him because the ones online are too easy (or way, way too hard)…. and they don’t have enough construction vehicle ones, of course. Everyone seems to make dot-to-dots of cute animals but not of construction cranes or forklifts. Why is that?

Anyway, our dot-to-dots are all over 100 dots and fairly challenging for our fine-motor-challenged child. We’re practicing holding our crayons the right way while pressing firmly, and it’s going… well, slowly.

“Practice makes progress” — my new motto, I think.