Maybe She's a Bot

But she sure inspires me.

I did something impulsive.

I don't know where it will lead, but I dove head first.

And it's all Neera's fault. She’s always upping the ante.

My friend Neera (for whom English is a second language) is a book-writing machine. She's written four books IN ENGLISH and teaches people to write their own books. You can see her books here. She even writes here on Substack.

I've never met Neera in person. For all I know, she could be a bot. How else could she be this productive?

And what a cute little bot she is!

I read her posts on LinkedIn regularly. On Halloween, she posted about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which began on November 1st. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in one month. For the bean counters, that's 1,667 words a day.

Neera has participated in NaNoWriMo since 2011. On her post she displayed her writing results for each of the past ten years. She fell short of the 50,000-word goal in seven of the ten years.

How brave she was to show us her “failures.”

Nevertheless, she won three years, and overall she wrote more than she would have without the challenge.

Since we had no Trick-or-Treaters that evening, I had a minute to consider the contest. I've wanted to write a memoir for a long time. I even started writing one a couple of years ago. I stopped as other things grabbed my attention.

You see, I suffer from shiny-object-syndrome. All that means is that when it got hard to write, I bailed.

Her post made me think. NaNoWriMo is a non-profit set up to help and encourage people to write. I would join a group of thousands doing the same thing at the same time. That's a lot of creative energy forming in the universe that would sweep me up in its vortex.

I decided to take the plunge.

Participants can write anything-it doesn’t have to be a novel. Of course, I’m going back to my memoir.

My memoir will be Part One of my legacy. My legacy is important to me, and I’ve challenged you to create your own. I'm doing it for my kids and their understanding of my life choices. Why I did the things that I did. Bare it all. Through my example, I want to encourage them to become conscious about their life choices.

But then again, I may not be as interesting to them as I think. Although I find myself quite interesting. (Oh, and my husband finds me fascinating, don’t you, honey?)

After a couple thousand words, I’ve had a few aha moments. I've connected dots I wouldn't have otherwise had I not chosen to do this.

So what if I don't win NaNoWriMo? I'll still be ahead.

Consistent effort is more important than winning. Baby steps lead to big results.

I've got to get going now. I still have to meet my goal for the day. I trust that my burst of creativity in 2022 will leave its mark, even if it’s only for me.