Belated Sunday Meditation: Consistently Persistent

Missed my Sunday meditation...but this does apply in that vein. Belated then it is.

I'm currently a reentry student in college and I have to say, this semester is more intense than I factored. Not the work but the sheer amount of writing is more than I expected. It makes me want to write creatively just to balance all the dry stuff. Since my last post, I've found myself waking up early to write then getting sidetracked by the impending exam, essay or book report . This happens even when I have amply prepared for them but I start second guessing myself. As a result, I'm not prioritizing my passion. How rude I am to myself for doing this?

Thankfully, this past weekend I participated with talented, awesome friends in a quarterly 24-hour Short Story Contest at Writer's Weekly. I've never done something like that before and I really liked it. It was fun even if I now keep thinking of all the things I could have done to improve my submission. But I submitted something I liked, believe can be enjoyed by others and says something. It felt good. It was fun especially sharing the pressure to get it submitted, ideas and general challenges with talented friends (who I think have a FANTASTIC shot at winning the top prizes). Thank you, if you guys are reading this. It was a great experience and you had a lot to do with that too.

Really, I refuse to allow those assignments to continue to get in my way, though I acknowledge they are a priority too. I just have to relax. Lack of sleep right now is probably not helping me either. But I know how good I feel working at one of my passions and I can't continue to improve or get where I'm going if I don't respect my time. Everyone (you know, the mysterious "they") says that one part of writing is persistence and another is consistency. I'm persistent, no doubt. I need to get more consistency. Tomorrow, I wake up and exam or not I write an hour and return to my center again. I also need to submit to my writer's group. That will be good for me too.

I'm going to participate in National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo in November of this year. I can't wait. Last year I "won" and wrote a 50k novel in 30 days. Please note, I did not provide an adjective such as great, fantastic or in the realm of publishing before the word novel in that last sentence. But I did meet the goal, gain a lot of self confidence and have fun. This year, I'm going to attempt to do it again, but this time write something with the intention to submit it for publishing. If you want to buddy up for encouragement, commiseration and general goofy hi-jinks, please let me know.

Right now, I'm going to have some tea and get some sleep. Then I'm going to wake up and do some fantastic writing. How about you?