Lessons

This time last month, I finished writing fifty thousand words.

And what have I achieved this month? Not a whole damn lot.

The best thing about NaNoWriMo, in my opinion, is that it shows you what you can do given the focus, the motivation, and the discipline. "If I can do this, then who knows what else I can do?"

On the NaNo forums, one of the participants posted about a conversation he'd had with his five year old daughter. She was attempting something new - maybe it was tying her shoelaces, maybe it was riding a bike - and she was having difficulty.

She said to her dad, "It's *hard*!"

He told her, "You can do hard things."

She said, in wonder, "I can?"

His words had been an off-the-cuff response, the poster told us, but his daughter looked as though she had been given some kind of gift.

*You can do hard things.*

Yeah.

I make the same kinds of resolutions every year. Every year, I fall short. But maybe I'm falling short by a lesser margin. Maybe it's all I can hope for.

2004 is almost upon us. New year. Old resolutions. And maybe, this time, different strategies. Focus. Motivation. Discipline.

And we'll see where we are this time next year.