The November challenge

Who doesn't love a challenge? According to my west coast pal uglygreenchair, November is National Blog Posting Month. Truth be told, the whole thing sounds sort-of sketchy - apparently it's an off-shoot of National Novel Writing Month, which another friend of mine attempted a few years ago. Still the idea is intriguing, enough for me to actually give it a whirl. So in the spirit of blogging - and those of you that know me will know I've done the blogging thing off and on for a few years (including maintaining "secret blogs," usually to keep up my writing chops in a somewhat public forum; who among us doesn't want at least a few nosy readers?) - and to help instill some discipline in my writing efforts, I'm picking up the proverbial gauntlet and will attempt to write on this blog every day during the month of November. The twist (and it's a minor one, I'll agree) is that I'm only going to keep this blog live during November. I'm pulling the plug on it once the calendar switches over to December.

My rules are simple. The first rule is the easiest to adhere: I'll write whatever the hell I want. Which means you might find me musing about my dull and boring life. (Example: "Oh look, I figured out a new way to tie the laces on my shoes!") Or maybe I'll write about books. Perhaps my job. I can potentially see myself dwelling on my soon-to-be foray into the world of wearing braces on my teeth. In short, there is no topic off limits - everything is fair game. And rule number two is that, while I'll attempt to scratch out lengthy-ish posts, I'm not going to feel guilty if I can only write something along the lines "Damn, that smoked meat sandwich was tasty" if that's all I can muster in a day. But trust me, I have more pride than that. (I'll probably add how I enjoyed the mustard as well.)

As some of you know, I maintain at least one other blog (although it's not really a blog, more along the lines of a vanity web site). During the month when I'm maintaining this site, there may be some crossover between a post on here and a post on the other site. (One other rule is that I'm not sharing this blog with my mother. So those of you that know her e-mail address: keep this blog a secret!) I don't want to let that site completely fall to pieces.

So there you have it. Consider this post, written a full day before the beginning of November, a preview of what's to come. Hmm, I hope I haven't lost most of you yet...