A Change of Perspective

Friday, November 02, 2007

A few weeks ago, I was huffing and puffing my way through a step aerobics class, and I looked at the woman beside me. She was older, yet moving deliberately through the series of steps, methodically, though much slower than the younger girls in class.

I had been attending the same class, without any regularity, for the last four years. Whenever I showed up, she was always there.

When the instructor called for the class to grab floor mats for the abdominal exercises, I leaned against a post to catch my breath and between heaving gulps of air, I grumbled that I felt like I was going to drop dead.

The woman turned to me and said, “Keep at it. It gets easier if you stay with it.” Then she mentioned she had been trying to persuade her daughter to come with her to class. “She’s only 68, but she thinks she’s too old. I keep telling her, it’s never too late.”

That was one of those ah-ha moments for me—when simple wisdom echoes like a thunderclap. I thought about so many things I didn’t stick with because they were difficult, and all of the things I told myself it was too late to begin. Writing poetry. Mastering a foreign language. Learning ballroom dancing. Trying scuba diving and skiing.

I think sometimes that can happen with our writing, unless we remember the two most important things: It gets easier if you stay with it. And it’s never too late.

With that in mind, if you ever thought you might want to try novel writing, this is the month to jump in and do it. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). You can sign up at www.nanowrimo.org.

It began yesterday, but it's never too late to get started!

3 comments:

Chynna said...

Annette, I laughed SO HARD at that picture. OMGoodness!

I totally agree with you about sticking with it and that it's never too late when it comes to writing.

Even I signed up for NaNo. For me, finding the time to write is the most difficult part. But I'm going to try to see it to the end.

Thanks for this encouraging post, Annette.

Chynna
www.lilywolfwords.ca
www.ctlaird.bravejournal.com

Sue said...

What a fun Friday post, Annette! This is a great reminder to everyone, whether to NaNo or just start that next writing project...no delays.

Thanks for a great way to end the week! ;-)

Angela Mackintosh said...

I love this post Annette! And the pic ;-) That will be us at that age! You better believe it! Although, I'll be riding a Guzzi, and you a Ninja? (What was the bike you used to have?)

Although I haven't participated in Nano, I DID do my own NaNo. Before WOW! I wrote three novels in two months -- complete WITH editing, mind you. I say novels, but they were novel-length, I suppose. I didn't finish any of them, but they were all over 60k in word count. Totally perfected and plotted out. Maybe I should take a part of Nov. to complete the endings!

I also wrote around 30k when I was in Maui for a month, a totally fantasy Murakami-inspired novel. It's so different from my other writing, but I love it.

I can't wait until we get the forums up so we can start building critique groups. That's one thing I really miss. Working on my novels and having them critiqued by groups. I did Zoe, but I'd like to have ours a closed forum and make groups for certain dedicated writers/novelists.

Anyhoo ~ vrrrroooommm!! Get your motor running and NaNo-out!

Hugs,

Ang

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