Week 5, Part I

How many of us are surprised that the check-in post is late? (Yes, I'm pretending someone would actually keep up with this blog.)

Week 5 of A Round of Words in 80 Days has not gone swimmingly so far. I'm lacking this drive that brought the rest of the participants here in the first place: Motivation.

I'm not a writer. I'm a writing hobbyist. Actually, even that phrase overstates what the written word is to me. I like writing, but it's not something I'm passionate about. I have no wish to make it a living, though I do still hold out the delusion that I will one day publish something -- prolly self-published. (If it doesn't happen, I won't lose any sleep over it.) I'm among one-monthers -- the ones who do National Novel Writing Month but no other writing the rest of the year.

The cool thing about ROW80 is how personalized the challenge is. You set your goal(s). You work to meet your goal(s). You check in on how your goal(s) progress(es). You keep yourself accountable. Others are doing this thing with you, but they're all chasing goals that they set. They don't have to meet your goal(s), and you don't have to meet theirs.

The very important part about this being so personalized is that you don't compare yourself with the other people in the challenge. And this is where I almost invariably fail.

Many of the others you will encounter on the Blog Hop (link posted below) are actual writers. They are people for whom the dream is strong or has even come true, to an extent. They still have day jobs, but are using ROW 80 to eke out time to make their writing goals happen, be it publishing for the first time or being able to quit that day job to focus entirely on writing.

I read of these folks who are Real Writers™ and think, "What the hell am I even doing here? I don't belong in this event with all of these writers around me. I'm just doing this for fun."

The truth is, however -- and this is the realization that ultimately keeps me doing ROW80 -- that my goal of "just doing this for fun" is just as valid as someone else's goal of writing for a living.

We're all in this ROW80 thing for our own reasons. At this moment, waffler that I am, my reasons for being here are not 100% clear. So while Week 5 may end up a bust (depending on how the weekend goes), I'm in this to the end of Round 1 at the very least.

The February 2 Check-In Blog Hop