I want to be fluent in Spanish.

I fantasize about what it would be like to live in a Spanish-speaking country for a while, to sit in cafe or bar and chat with people about life. I imagine connecting with Spanish speakers in my own neighborhood who are shocked and delighted that I can talk to them in their native language. I wonder if being bilingual would change the way I think and feel and see the world.

I hated Spanish class in school. My teachers spent all of their time cramming vocabulary and verb conjugations into my head and assigning written exams to test my knowledge. I don’t remember ever getting the chance to carry on an actual conversation.

Long after graduation, I talked about wanting to be able to communicate in Spanish, but I did little about it.

Then COVID came along, and like many people, I decided to use my time in isolation towards self-improvement. I found a Spanish tutor and began meeting with him online for an hour per week. Sometimes he’d come up with a lesson, and other times we’d just chat for an hour. I was impressed by his knowledge, his creativity, and his patience. Yet after over two years of meeting almost every week, I barely felt like I was getting anywhere.

I didn’t blame my tutor. I blamed myself for not taking the time to practice between lessons.

My 30-day Spanish challenge

This past month, I decided it was time to step it up. Since it would be impractical to meet with a speaking partner daily, I would practice by myself. My 30-day goal was simple: every day, I’d speak Spanish for 15 minutes and listen to Spanish for 15 minutes.

The listening part went fairly well. While I didn’t practice daily, I did most days. I listened to music in Spanish. I watched popular American TV shows with Spanish dubbing. I downloaded the Spanish audiobook of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favorite books as a kid, and listened to it during long walks.

My speaking practice was another story: I spoke Spanish maybe three days out of the entire month.

I did, however, practice in other ways. I used Duolingo daily for at least 5 minutes, and I started using a flash card app to help me learn vocabulary.

Mission impossible?

Although I put in more time than usual, I didn’t feel much better about my progress towards fluency. I began to wonder if it was really worth my time and energy to keep studying Spanish.

I questioned how realistic my dream was. I claim that knowing another language will open doors to new friendships, but I have a hard enough time making new friends who speak my native language. Am I suddenly going to become more outgoing if I learn Spanish?

Besides, what does it really mean to be fluent, and how will I know when I get there? When I decided to hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, I could literally see my goal getting closer with every step. But with a goal like Spanish fluency, it’s much harder to measure progress. There’s no summit. I won’t wake up one day and realize I’m fluent. It’s just one, long, arduous climb; and every new, unfamiliar word torments me like a pebble in my boot.

Abandoning the climb

I remember hearing some advice from a YouTube personality who’s an expert in language learning: rather than always trying to actively learn a language, sometimes it’s best to let the language wash over you through repeat exposure.

As I thought about this, I realized I tended to enjoy Spanish most when I stopped trying so hard and just had fun with it.

When I started listening to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory audiobook, for instance, I would get hung up on all of the words I didn’t understand. But gradually, I learned to just listen to the narrator, admiring the way he navigated between different voices for the different characters and laughing as he sang the “Oompa Loompa” songs that followed each child’s departure. When I let go, I had a lot more fun, and because I was already familiar with the story, I usually had a general idea of what was happening.

Similarly, my initial approach to Duolingo made it feel more like a chore than a game. The streak counter motivated me to complete at least one lesson every day. The lesson timer made me feel like I was racing against the clock, then rewarded me with words of encouragement. The point system propelled me to cram in extra lessons so I wouldn’t lose my position on the “leader board.”

But when I let these mechanisms control how I use the app, I’m sacrificing quality for quantity. I’ll encounter a fill-in-the-blank prompt and read the bare minimum number of words required to figure out the answer. When I instead slow down, I get exposed to the full sentence, which will help me learn to speak in full sentences and pick up more vocabulary along the way. I know I enjoy reading novels more when I take my time than when I attempt to speed read. The same goes for language learning.

I’m not in school anymore. I’m not doing this for a grade or some other sense of obligation. I don’t know if and when I’ll be able to say I’m fluent in Spanish. But if I can stop worrying about how fast I’m progressing and just enjoy myself, I’m much more likely to be consistent. And with enough exposure, maybe someday I’ll find out I actually can carry on a meaningful conversation in Spanish.

Next month (sneak preview)

While Spanish fluency would be nice, it’s only a piece of my greater quest to find more fulfillment in my personal and professional life. I want to take a step back and try to examine the bigger picture. With that in mind, next month’s trial will involve my third attempt at working through a book called Designing Your Life . . .

Last month, after receiving some marginally concerning results on my blood tests, I decided to adjust my lifestyle. Given the success I had with NaNoWriMo–the 30-day challenge to write a 50,000-word novel from scratch–I wanted to give myself another 30-day challenge to improve my health.

Here’s a summary of what I took on and the results:

Focus Area	Challenge	Grade
Sleep	– Wake up at 4:30 a.m. every morning – Go to bed at the same time every night – No electronics in bed – Keep my phone (i.e., alarm clock) in another room – Don’t hit “snooze”	C-
Water	– Drink at least 4 pints of water daily	A
Alcohol	– No more than 2 drinks on any given day – Don’t drink every day	A+
Diet	– Follow the Mediterranean diet (lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes; keep sugars, processed foods, and unhealthy fats to a minimum)	A

Sleep Assessment

Week one went pretty well. As planned, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. every day, got up to turn off my alarm, and did not go back to sleep. The first few days I had to take a nap or two to recharge, but it got better as the week went on. I went to bed by the same time every night, although I didn’t always fall asleep right away. By the end of that week, I would say my energy level was about as low as it had been when my sleep schedule was more erratic, but at least it wasn’t any worse.

Then I got sick. For another week, I had some combination of chest congestion, a cough, post-nasal drip, sneezing fits, and increased fatigue. The illness made it harder to fall asleep, and I opted not to set an alarm because I needed rest to recover. I’d sometimes bring my phone or laptop to bed with me just so I could distract myself from the discomfort.

I started feeling better after a week, but the cough persisted for at least another week.

I never got my sleep habits back on track.

This behavior isn’t unusual for me. I psych myself up to build a new habit, stick with it for a while, and as soon as something disrupts my progress, it’s hard for me to get “psyched” again.

However, I know I can do better.

A week of consistency was long enough for me to believe I’m capable of maintaining the habit, but not long enough for me to judge whether it improves my quality of life. I’m going to try again.

Water Intake Assessment

The idea of “habit stacking” is to try to form multiple habits at once by doing them back to back. I tried to apply this by keeping a pitcher of water and a pint glass next to my phone. When I heard my alarm, I got up, shut it off, saw the pitcher, drank a glass of water, and was 1/4 of the way to my water consumption goal. The pitcher remained in my peripheral vision for much of the day, so it was easy to remember to drink water.

The process worked flawlessly. Then I got sick and started taking my phone and laptop to bed with me. For a few days, I slept without an alarm. Then I used the alarm again but didn’t have to get up to shut it off. As a result, the chain between the alarm and the pitcher of water was broken.

I probably still managed to get at least four pints down more than 90% of the time, but I know I fell short at least a few times.

Since I plan to try to rebuild my sleep habit, I’m hoping the rest of the habit stack will fall back into place.

Alcohol Assessment

I impressed myself with my discipline around alcohol. I experience social anxiety at times, and alcohol is the perfect antidote. So while the old me didn’t drink much on most days, when I went out socially, I had no set limit. I never drank to the point of getting sick, but I could visit several establishments in one evening and have multiple drinks at each.

Over the past 30 days, not once did I exceed two drinks, and there were many days when I didn’t drink at all.

Perhaps the biggest test came just a few days before the end of the month. First, my drinking buddies paid me a surprise visit. We went out to brunch and then to a bar. I had one beer. The bartender asked multiple times if I’d like another and I declined. My friends suggested we continue to another bar and I declined that as well.

Then I had dinner at the house of another friend’s family. There was beer and wine a-plenty. I had sparkling water.

Later that night, my friend and I went to a concert. I ordered one beer before the show, then tore off my over-21 wristband.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t even that hard. Once I accepted my constraints, they simply became non-negotiable. I expect that trend to continue (although I might give myself a pass on my birthday).

Diet Assessment

Not only did I switch to a Mediterranean diet right away, but I went above and beyond my original plan. Since I’ve also been going to the gym to try to gain muscle and lose body fat, I decided to track and adjust my macronutrient (carbs, fat, and protein) intake as well. I normally find it tedious to document what I eat, but I created my own tracking spreadsheet with some fancy formulas and color coding and other features. I think using something I built rather than an app made it more rewarding to see the results.

I was very consistent about eating the right foods, only splurging a little bit on two special occasions. I was better about tracking my intake when I ate at home than I was when I went out, but I was still careful about what I ordered.

If the recommendations I’ve read are to be trusted, even though I thought I was “eating healthy” before, my macronutrient ratios were way off–too much fat, not enough protein and carbs. Now I have a pretty good sense of what I need to consume to find the right balance.

The Results

I had another blood test done about four weeks after I started making these changes. I was disappointed with the results. While some of the problem areas had slightly improved, the changes were negligible. With such dramatic lifestyle changes, I expected to see more dramatic results. In addition, my physician didn’t test my cholesterol again because she felt it was too soon–she wants me to wait about three months to get tested again.

But even though it’s hard to quantify the impact of these new habits, I still think it was worth it. I know I’m capable of more consistent sleep habits. I know drinking more water and cutting back on alcohol are good decisions. I’m more conscious about what I eat, and I expect it to not only improve my health but also give me better results at the gym. I’ve lost a few pounds, and while weight loss isn’t necessarily my goal–I want to replace fat with muscle–my mom recently told me my face looked thinner, so I must be doing something right.

The 30-day trial wasn’t a complete success, but I feel like all of these habits are feasible and worth pursuing.

In fact, I’ve decided to take on another 30-day trial next month, albeit unrelated to the last one. I plan to spend at least 15 minutes per day listening to Spanish and 15 minutes per day speaking Spanish every day. This will be the subject of next month’s post.

I like to think I lead a relatively healthy lifestyle, but my body says otherwise.

In a post I wrote entitled, “Waking Up is Hard to Do,” I described how exhausted I was on most days. I said this was something I’d work on. Eleven months later, I’m just as tired.

I also recently had my blood tested. The results showed, among other things, that all of my cholesterol levels were on the wrong side of the healthy range: my HDL was low and my LDL and triglycerides were high. I wasn’t surprised; my cholesterol levels have been problematic since I first had them tested as a kid.

My energy and cholesterol challenges have persisted for so long that I’ve felt like there’s nothing more I can do but accept them as a part of life.

But when I truly examine how I live, I see a lot of room for improvement.

Going to bed

What I tell myself

“No matter how tired I am during the day, I can’t control what time I fall asleep at night.”

The fine print

Often when I can’t fall asleep, I turn to my cell phone or laptop and watch videos or other entertainment to help me unwind. I know the “blue light” emitted by these screens is detrimental to falling asleep–I even have a red light bulb in the lamp on my night stand for this reason.

If I don’t sleep enough, not only am I tired, but my body has a tougher time repairing muscle, metabolizing food, and other factors that contribute to cholesterol levels.

My new routine

I’m going to start charging my phone in my office instead of my bedroom, and my laptop is off limits in bed. If I want to unwind, I’ll read a book by the light of my red bulb.

Waking up

What I tell myself

“It doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, how long I sleep, or when I get up–I almost always wake up feeling like I haven’t slept enough.”

The fine print

On most weeknights, I check my calendar for the next day to see when my first meeting is, then set my alarm to slightly before that. This means I wake up at a different time almost every day. I’ve read that waking up at the same time every day should help me get tired at the same time every night. Instead, by trying to get every minute of sleep I can in the morning, I’m preventing my body from developing a regular sleep cycle.

My new routine

It would be ideal if I could wake up at the same time every day. However, once a week I have to get up before 4 AM for an early meeting, and I don’t think it’s reasonable for me to get up that early every day.

As a compromise, I’m going to set my alarm for 4:30 AM six days per week (yes, even weekends) and 3:45 AM on the night before my weekly, early meeting. Since my phone/alarm clock will be in my office, I’ll have to get up to shut it off.

Drinking water

What I tell myself

“I drink plenty of water.”

The fine print

I don’t know how much water I drink because I don’t keep track. Water may not have a direct impact on cholesterol. However, dehydration makes me tired, which makes me more sedentary and affects my workouts, and exercise affects cholesterol levels.

My new routine

I’m supposed to drink around 8-10 cups of water per day. A pint is 2 cups. I’ll keep a pitcher of water and a pint glass at my desk next to my phone. As soon as my alarm goes off, I can pour myself a glass of water. I’m also going to use my new habit tracker app, “Finch” (which has been very helpful so far), to remind me to drink at least four pints of water per day.

Drinking alcohol

What I tell myself

“I don’t drink that much alcohol.”

The fine print

Alcohol has all kinds of detrimental effects. Among other things, it compromises sleep quality and it’s been linked to high triglyceride and LDL levels. The more I drink in one sitting, the harder it is for my body to process. While I don’t drink every day, I like strong beer and whiskey and there are days when I’ll have several in one evening, especially if I’m out with friends.

My new routine

Instead of consuming an average of 1-2 drinks per day, my limit for any given day will be 1-2 drinks. I’ll also try to allocate at least 1-2 “dry days” per week.

Since I love discovering new, delicious beers and whiskeys, this habit may limit my ability to “try new things.” I’ll just have to choose quality over quantity and learn to savor every sip.

Eating

What I tell myself

“I consume minimal refined carbohydrates, sugars, and fried foods. I have a soda maybe once a year. I also do resistance training three times a week and walk several miles every week. My diet is fine.”

The fine print

While my lunches and dinners tend to be relatively healthy, I still have my vices. For example, lately I’ve been going out to breakfast almost every day. I’ll often order the French toast combination (sourdough bread is good for you, right?), and while I think I’m being “good” by asking the waiter to hold the syrup and powdered sugar, I replace these toppings with a full container of whipped butter, and I have a side of breakfast sausage. Also, although I usually avoid sweets, when they’re in front of me, I tend to overdo it.

My new routine

Per my doctor’s recommendation, I’m going to try more of a Mediterranean diet–more fruit, vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils, nuts and seeds; limit meat to fish and chicken breasts; and try to eat vegetarian at least once a week. I may allow myself the occasional “cheat meal” but not more than once or twice a week.

Between my weekly meal kit delivery service, the local farmer’s market, and the occasional visit to the grocery store, I’ll have plenty of options. I don’t enjoy grocery stores, but hopefully I can just grab a few staples every week or so and not have to spend a lot of time there.

Can I do it?

My original plan for next month was to come up with one habit I could practice every day for 30 days. Instead, I’ve come up with a much more elaborate scheme to try to address my sleep and dietary issues all at once.

It seems like a lot, but I think I can manage. I tackle three of the problems by simply keeping my phone and a pitcher of water in my office at night. The alcohol and eating adjustments may take some will power, but I now have a compelling reason to put forth the effort.

It’s possible I’ll make all of these changes and nothing will improve. If so, I’ll talk to my doctor about other options. For now, I have nothing to lose . . . except maybe a few pounds.

Over the past year of blogging, I’ve faced many challenges, made commitments, and experienced epiphanies. But I’m almost always looking ahead to the next post. To wrap up 2022, I will take the time to reflect on my last twelve posts. What went well? What didn’t quite go according to plan? How can I continue to build off of what I’ve learned? I hope some of these oversized, fortune-cookie messages will also be valuable to my readers.

4/1/2022: “Seclusion: My uncomfortable comfort zone“
Moving from a duplex to a larger, more open complex didn’t magically turn me into a social butterfly as I’d hoped. My attempts to connect with people in the area have been hit or miss. But instead of blaming myself for misfires, I’m learning that I can’t expect to click with every person I meet. And every time I put myself out there, it’s another opportunity to make a new friend or at least walk away with a smile on my face.

3/1/2022: “Waking up is hard to do“
I know a good night’s sleep is one of the key ingredients for good health, yet it’s been a near-constant struggle for me. I wrote this post in March and things haven’t really improved since then. I think it’s time for some professional help.

5/1/2022: “I left my heart in New Delhi“
I’ve had some memorable experiences, some exhilarating and some traumatic. But while they’re part of my history, my story is still being written. It’s largely up to me how interesting the remaining chapters will be.

6/1/2022: “The perils of people pleasing“
I used to see being a people pleaser as a flaw, but it’s just part of what drives me. I just need to remember that I’m a person, too, and I deserve the same treatment.

2/1/2022: “Why my 17th ‘moving day’ will be my best“
I’m better at getting things done when I plan ahead. But even after moving sixteen times in my life, I always seemed to end up scrambling at the last minute. For my seventeenth move, I not only planned ahead, but I came up with a foolproof strategy for every major element of my move from packing to disposing of things to finding a new place. It ended up being the least stressful move of my adult life.

9/1/2022: “How to take a vacation without taking time off“
I’ve also discovered that I don’t have to limit “planning ahead” to errands, appointments, and commitments to other people–I can also make time to take care of myself!

8/1/2022: “The intentional tourist“
Short-term plans are just as important as long-term plans. Every week is a week I won’t get back, so I’ll try to make the most of it.

10/1/2022: “The gift of patience“
I don’t have to wait until I accomplish something huge to feel good about myself. I’m making a conscious effort to celebrate the small victories.

1/1/2022: “I finally convinced myself to write a novel“
I’m convinced that new year’s resolutions were invented by gyms to get more people to buy memberships. My “resolution” (although I didn’t call it that) for 2022 was to write a novel. Like most resolutions, I started with good intentions but my resolve faded over time.

11/1/2022: “How I plan to write my novel“
When planning becomes procrastination, sometimes it’s better to just get started and figure it out as you go along.

12/1/2022: “I wrote a novel! (sort of)“
After writing nothing but notes from January 1 to October 31, I wrote a very rough yet complete first draft during the month of November. I learned that having an ambitious but concrete, time-bound goal (“write a 50,000-word draft in 30 days”) was better than having a vague, open-ended one (“I’m going to write a novel”).

7/1/2022: “Making room for writing“
There was a period where I felt like my blog and my novel were in competition for my attention. I worked through this conflict by using my blog to help me jump-start my novel. Now I feel like I can do both. I look forward to revising my novel in 2023 while I explore new territory through my blog.

Last month, as a first-time participant in November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I committed to writing 50,000 words of the first draft of a novel.

On November 29 at around 5:30 PM, as I was hunched over a coffee shop table, typing furiously in my Scrivener writing program, a little alert box popped up on my screen.

I finished writing down my thought, updated my word count on the NaNoWriMo website, and turned my laptop around to show this to my friend:

I felt a warm, tingling sensation in my body. I couldn’t help but smile. I let out a not-too-loud “woo!” This was the best I had felt about an accomplishment since I reached the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome a few years ago.

50,000 words. That’s an average of 1,667 words per day–as long as some of the short stories I’ve written.

Am I ready to publish my novel? Not even close. But after having 0 words as of October 31, I now have about 200 pages (double-spaced) of raw material to draw from as I write future drafts.

I’ll share a few things I learned along the way to 50k.

Writing without editing is liberating

I took a vacation the first week in November; I wanted the time and space to start building my writing habit. Even with the entire day to myself, I really had to fight my tendency to procrastinate in order to hit my daily word target of 1,667.

Once I was back to work and other commitments, I had far less time to work with. I wrote every day, but some days I only wrote a few paragraphs, and I had to play catch-up on weekends.

But I quickly learned that the only way I was going to reach my goal was if I resisted the urge to self-edit. Being a perfectionist, it was painful at first to write without going back and tweaking things. But had I edited my work, it probably would have tripled the time commitment.

I also didn’t write the scenes in order. One day I’d write a scene that might be a hundred pages away from the one I wrote the day before. The opening and ending scenes came to me around week two or three.

Although it felt like fighting against my nature to write this way, something changed after the first several days. I started to feel a sense of freedom. So the scenes are out of order–I can fix it later. So this scene might not work at all–write it anyway and decide later. I realized I had little to lose by writing something and throwing it out later. But if I started overthinking, all I’d end up with was the same result I had before November: a lonely, blank page waiting to become part of the “perfect” story.

It helps to have support

Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been operating on the mantra that this novel is for me. I wanted to know what it would feel like to write a novel without worrying about what other people think. And there was no way I would have gotten through November if everything I wrote had to pass through the “is it good enough to share?” filter.

A lot of people don’t even know I’m working on a novel, and those who do don’t know much about what it’s about. I worry that if I share too much, people will provide feedback that derails my progress: things that don’t make sense, things that should change, things they would do if they were writing the novel. None of this should affect me. I should be able to just say, “thanks for your comments” and do what I feel is right. But I know myself, and I’m not as resilient as I’d like to be.

However, for NaNoWriMo, I found there is strength in numbers. It helped to know that potentially hundreds of thousands of people were participating with me. Knowing that only 10-15% of the annual participants meet the 50,000-word target gave me some extra, competitive drive.

But there was also a handful of people I know personally who made a big difference. Four other people in my writing group agreed to join NaNoWriMo with me. Without divulging our content, we asked questions and shared our struggles and triumphs to help each other keep going. I had a friend who joined me multiple times at a coffee shop for focused writing time, including staying with me the day I hit 50k. I had friends and family who would simply ask, “how’s the writing coming along?” Just as I’m not impervious to criticism, I’m also not numb to encouragement. Having support and feeling like I was part of a community helped propel me to complete this writing marathon.

Source material is everywhere

I collected a lot of books for research leading up to November. My collection grew in November. In the past, I would occasionally pick up a book, read a few pages, and take notes that I’d likely never look at again. But once I started writing my novel, those books became treasure chests. I could read as little as a sentence or two and it would spark an idea that might turn into an entire chapter. I get distracted easily and have a lot of unfinished books on my shelves, but with this kind of result, I didn’t have to feel guilty about it. Even one line of inspiration is worth it to me.

A lot of my research was accidental. One day I was watching an interview on YouTube that had nothing (I thought) to do with my novel, but a point came up in the conversation that inspired a scene in my story. While trying to come up with the story location, I ended up borrowing elements from the place I’d stayed on vacation weeks prior. I even made a connection to a movie I haven’t seen in twenty years.

When you become immersed in an unfinished world as I did while working on this novel–and I imagine the same would go for drawing or interior design or any other creative outlet–everything could become a source of inspiration. This also helped me spend less time shoegazing and more time paying attention to my surroundings.

Writing characters can be therapeutic

There are elements of myself in my characters. The deeper I dove into their backstories, their personalities, and their motivations, the more I began to realize about myself. And because characters need an “arc” (the transformation they go through over the course of the story), I had to put them in challenging situations and then figure out how to get them out of them. In my life story, my character arc is still (I hope) a long way from being finished. But trying to help my characters through their problems actually helped me devise some solutions for myself–sometimes through action, and sometimes just by making peace with the way things are.

Habits are addictive

It took a lot of discipline to write every day for a month. But the longer I maintained my streak, the harder it became to let myself stop.

Now that I’ve hit 50k, I could decide it’s time to take a break. But I don’t want to. I’m not going to worry about quantity anymore, but I intend to write at least a sentence or two every day.

I’ll keep doing research, but instead of taking notes that lie buried in a notebook, whatever ideas I come up with will go straight into my story where I know I’ll revisit them.

It may take a while, but given what I’ve accomplished in just one month, I’m now far more confident that I will complete this novel.

I’ve dreamed of writing a novel for as long as I can remember, but it’s still no more tangible than a dream.

I began the year with a commitment to start working on my novel.

Six months went by and all I had were a few pages of handwritten notes.

I decided I needed to make some changes in my life and wrote a series of posts on how I’d make the time and space to become a committed novelist.

I made some progress. My accountability group helped motivate me to set weekly goals. My research helped me come up with some ideas for content. Some online novel-writing classes inspired me to create character backstories, identify sources of conflict, and even sketch out a rough outline.

But ten months into the year, I still hadn’t written a single word of the actual novel.

Instead, the more research I did and courses I took, the longer my list of prerequisites became:

• Come up with a title
• Develop more characters and backstories
• Expand my outline
• Do more research
• Read books in my genre
• And on and on . . .

I’ve told myself that the more I plan ahead, the more likely I’ll be to write a good novel.

But the truth is, at this point, the more I plan, the less likely I am to write a novel at all.

There comes a point where planning is just another form of procrastination. As long as I keep planning, I can tell people, “I’m going to write a novel,” then fantasize about great it will be when it’s done. I don’t have to worry about failure.

But what if I write it and people don’t like it?

The answer is in the post I wrote at the beginning of the year:

I don’t want to write a novel for a grade or money or praise or out of feelings of obligation and guilt. I don’t want this to be another vehicle for people-pleasing.

I want to experience what it’s like to create a story that unfolds over 200 or 300 pages or more. I want to get to know my characters as well as I know some of my friends . . . I want to know what it feels like to see the finished work and be able to say, “I did that.”

That was my intention in January, yet somewhere along the way, I forgot: this novel is for me.

That’s it. No more planning. Next month, November, I’m going to write my first draft.

And if history is any indicator, at least half a million people will join me in that effort.

Every November since 1999, a growing number of writers have signed up for an event called “NaNoWriMo” or “National Novel Writing Month.” The rules are simple: between November 1 and November 30, participants must write at least 50,000 words to complete a draft of a novel.

Everyone who achieves the target word count is a winner.

However, of those who sign up, only about 10-15% achieve their goal each year.

It seems the majority is with me: we’re good at setting goals, but we’re even better at putting them off. There are even songs about it. Creedence Clearwater Revival gave us “Someday Never Comes.” The Bears sang, “The Best Laid Plans (never get laid).”

By November 30, my theme song will be, “We Are the Champions.”