No Nano Right Now

That's right. You read it. I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

I'll give that a moment to sink in. Okay, moment done. Why am I not writing? I don't feel the urge. If you haven't noticed, there hasn't been a lot of activity on my blog for some time. I'm not terribly regular about my posts. Bottom line is this: I'm not terribly driven to write. Some people are. Some of my friends are. I am not. Can I write? Yes. Can I wright right (which is to say, correctly)? Most definitely. Is my writing any good? I'd like to think so. But it's not great. And I don't have the uncontrollable urge to throw myself at a pen and frantically scribe my thoughts in a mad frenzy until I have a notebook full of a bizarre but exciting tale. It's just not in me. So at this point, all I'd be doing is forcing myself into a halfhearted effort at pleasing someone else. That doesn't interest me. Lest we forget, I'm a non-conformist; I don't do things just because other people are doing them. Get that thought out of your head right now. Otherwise I'll siphon it out and flush it down the sink.

You may (or may not) be thinking, "Joe, this doesn't sound like you. What's going on?" Well, it may not sound like the me you've known but it is me. I've just been learning more about myself lately. Learning why I do some things and why I don't do some others. Why I like some things and don't like others. I'm becoming more me. Taking the essence of what I am and crystallizing it. It's provided more clarity.

So where am I going from here? I dunno. Haven't figured that out yet. I'll still write. Off and on. Here and there. Random lines of poetry. Snippets of stories. We'll see what happens. You may read it one day. If I ever put it all together. And that's how life goes. Somewhat disordered. Sometimes untidy. Make it up as you go.

Don't talk about it, write about it, hear about it. Just live it.