On decisions

I will not be doing NaNo this year.

Some decisions are made through deliberation and calculation. Some are made in a moment; as soon as the thought occurs you know it is the right one. You may consider it afterward, weighing the consequences, but you know, as you knew from the first moment, that the decision has already been made, and everything else is just getting comfortable with it. So it was with my decision to go to law school. So it was with my decision to do what I'm doing on Friday (you'll know it when you see it... don't worry, it's not that momentous, but it is somehow important to me.) Decisions like that are not so much about what to do as about who you are. You come to a moment of definition, and you realize that your priorities and desires lead you to this path, and no other. The only decision, then, is to accept it, casting away what must be cast away and embracing what must be embraced, or to reject it, stubbornly clinging to an older self which has already died.

So it is with my decision not to do NaNo. (If you don't remember what Nano is, this post should refresh your memory.) I really wanted to do it, this probably being the last year I'll be able to commit to two thousand words a day with any trace of realism. Law school will certainly forbid it, and who knows what my life after that will be like? And last year I won for the first time, and I really wanted to enter this year knowing I can do it, and adding another victory to prove the first one wasn't a fluke. And there's this story I can't wait to write...

All of those are good reasons, but as it turns out they're not enough, because my heart isn't in it. And I've learned better than to commit to a significant investment when my heart isn't in it, no matter how many good reasons there are. (Not to say I won't ever make that mistake again, but I certainly have learned better.) I realized it while finishing my law school essay this morning (yes friends, the essay is done! assuming my review board approves it... and even if they don't, I may just string them up by their toenails and send it off anyway.) The essay is about self-discipline and intellectual freedom, as I have experienced it, and after writing a few hundred words on that subject the truth was plain: I am not going to do NaNo this year. I could try it, making a half-hearted attempt, becoming frustrated, and giving up around the 16th or 17th, or I could spend those weeks engaging in tasks that will be fruitful, because I'm truly committed to them.

So what am I going to do in November? Begin studying Russian. Get better at go. Read four or five great books (maybe more... since I started War and Peace I've forgotten how long it takes me to read a normal book.) Finish the skirt I'm embroidering for Gretchen, and maybe even Peter's afghan. And start posting to this blog again.

So goodbye, NaNo... you have been a beautiful and difficult part of my life for the last five years, and I shall miss you. But it's time to move on.