To NaBloPoMo or not to NaBloPoMo, that is the question…

Should I participate in this year’s National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo? I started considering that question at least a month ago but waffled as to making a decision. And for good reason. If you check out my posting results for this entire year, you would see that I have written (or at least published) fewer than the 30 posts I would have to produce if I were to meet the daily goal for NaBloPoMo in November. When I stopped teaching to work a normal 8 to 5 job with a whole hour to myself at lunchtime, I thought I’d have more time to write. I was wrong.

It has gotten harder and harder to write and post to my blog on a regular basis, but — against my better judgment, most likely — I chose to participate once again, hesitating to decide until last night about 5 p.m. Why? NaBloPoMo is shot of motivation. Most likely the very shot I need right now. It isn’t just the commitment to write daily, to get outside my comfort zone and blog differently for 30 full days. It’s doing that plus reaching out to engage with other bloggers by reading and liking and commenting and broadening my little blogging world. It’s getting encouragement in this journey — even if it’s just by blogging alongside others who are blogging. It’s not misery, but it loves company anyway.

So why not do NaBloPoMo, right?

Actually, that is the easier question. Why shouldn’t I participate in NaBloPoMo?

• I can’t manage to find time to post weekly, let alone daily.
• I sit in front of a computer all day at work and have no desire to sit in front of one once I arrive home from work. (Seriously, I typically don’t touch my personal laptop except to run virus and malware scans on the weekend and perhaps do a bit of online shopping.
• I seem to have less inspiration now that I’m not in a classroom teaching — or maybe having no grading or lesson plans to avoid makes writing less tempting?
• My co-worker officially started her maternity leave, which means I am me and she at work. (Funny, actually. She wouldn’t tell anyone the baby’s sex, even though she knew it. For nine months she has called this baby “he/she,” and now I am calling myself “me/she.” Ironic.
• And there’s this, I mention NaBloPoMo to people who know and love me, and, after they’ve asked “Na Blow what?,” they tell me I’m crazy. (True story: I flipped my Mary Engelbreit calendar to November to see “Don’t let anyone drive you crazy. It’s right nearby anyway, and the walk will do you good.” I’m walking.)

All good reasons not to participate. But the thought of NaBloPoMo kept niggling my mind until I succumbed and registered my name and blog site, committing myself to 30 days of challenge. When I went to my BlogHer site, where I have cross-posted during the month-long event the two previous years, I saw the last post I managed to eek out last year. It was titled “I have succumbed…” I had succumbed to an illness passed along by my dear son whom I had nursed back to health…

Yikes.

So for me, the answer to the question — “To NaBloPoMo or not to NaBloPoMo?” — is “To NaBloPoMo.” I begin this November the way I ended last November, succumbing. This time to crazy rather than the flu.