Pat Bean's blog

“Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” – M. Scott Peck

The best way to start any day is with an awesome sunrise, such as this one that I took in Harker Heights, Texas -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Most mornings I start my day the exact same way. I awake with the sun, get up, fix coffee, catch up on my e-mail, savor my cream-laced coffee, look at the landscape outside my RV window and write my daily blog. At some point during this process, I take a break and walk my canine traveling companion, Maggie.

Many days, since unlike me Maggie likes to sleep in, I’ve already finished my blog before we go for our walk. My binoculars are usually around my neck and my camera is in my pocket for it’s usually on such walks that I get inspiration for my blogs.

This is the look Maggie gives me when she finally wakes up and has decided it's time for me to take her for a walk. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Then it’s back to my RV for some more writing – or procrastinating to write, which is just as likely.

Still, it’s fair to say that most of my day is spent in front of my computer – and that’s going to be even fairer to say in November since I’ve signed up to for NaNoWriMo. This is the abbreviated way of saying National Novel Writing Month, which has been held every year since 1999. It started with 21 participants and last year had over 200,000.

The goal is to write a novel in one month. Actually it’s to write a terrible novel of 50,000 words between Nov. 1 and Nov 30. The exercise is supposed to help increase productivity and halt a writer’s obsession with spending hours on making sure every sentence is perfect before going on to the next, to which I plead guilty.

I’ve signed up for the event quite a few times, but that procrastination addiction of mine won the month. I’ve signed up again this year – but this year I intend to win. My advantage is that this year I’m telling everyone what I’m doing in hopes that my pride will not let me down.

My goal is to write 2,500 words a day for six days a week, and then excuse myself from even signing on to my computer for one day a week. I figure I’ll need that one day to keep my sanity. I’ve been thinking I needed that even before I committed to NaNoWriMo. 

To give myself a few days of extra time to think about characters, setting and plot for the AWFUL mystery I plan to write, beginning tomorrow I’m simply going to post photos of some of  the best places I’ve visited over the past seven years of my travels with Maggie. I mean I’ve come too far meeting the daily blogging challenge to not make it to the end.

Hopefully my commitment to the NaNoWriMo challenge will also make it to the end. I’ll keep you up to date with its progress on my blog. Wish me luck.