Winning at Irony

It's the last full week in November, isn't it? Wow.

I can't believe it's gone by so quickly, and I can't believe how much this past month has changed me. I've written about it here, my various concerns and meditations and anxieties, and lately, it seems like I've been spending too much time worrying about what December will be like, if I'll be able to continue once the mandatory blog is over, once the NaNoWriMo is completed. There have been a lot of great comments, too, things that people have said that made me think, words of encouragement that made me smile.

You want to know the main reason why I don't see myself stopping just because the "deadline" has passed?

It's because now I feel like I have a story to tell. I feel like I have something to say. I don't think I'll be at the end in my little tale by 50,000 words and I very much want to finish this journey, so that I can share it. Many, many times, when I sat down to write, I worry that I didn't have anything to say. And a lot of times, I still feel that way, especially when I'm just getting started, when the page before me is blank and I'm trying to think about how to begin.

But I have something to say now. I have a story to tell, and I know that there will be another one after that, and one after that, and so on. I know that it won't be easy, but hasn't that been the entire point of November? Hasn't that been the number one lesson that we've learned together? That talent is a nice thing to have, a great little incentive to get you started, but hard work is what writes books, fills blogs, gets you away from that point in your life where you tell people "oh, I want to be a writer, it's totally my dream," even as you both wonder about the fact that you haven't written anything in six months. Hard work gets you to this point, and not to sound like a smug, arrogant jerk, but I'm pretty happy at this point right now. I feel good. I feel, well... I feel right.

You know, on a totally unrelated, it strikes me as amusing that I'm talking about how good I feel about my fiction writing and how I've got this great sense of purpose now and the whole world is just out there, and yet, I'm completely dreading the rhetoric project that's due tomorrow in the class that I'm doing this blog for. It'll be done, of course, it'll be ready, but I have this intense feeling of anxiety since I missed an entire week due to my on-again, off-again sickness, and I just don't feel good about the work, and... I don't really know where I'm going with that, I just wanted to mention it. Especially since it's truly ironic, and not just an amusing coincidence. Which means I totally win at irony. And everything, forever!

You will absolutely not get that joke unless you know what Power Thirst is.