do I, or do I not?
Nov. 1st, 2012 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyDebating whether I should join NaBloPoMo. Do you guys really want to read a post from me every day this month? (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
etfb, you have to say yes, because you've been doing NaBloPoFiveyears or so). Do I think I can find the time to say something not inane every day this month, including the days I'm traveling? Hmmm...I know at least two, if not more, days this month where I'm guaranteed not to have internet access. Do I want to set myself up to fail?
But on the other hand, if I post tonight, I can always decide later, whereas if I don't post, I'm already out of the game. And something I learned as a kid is that sometimes, if you don't enter, you can't win -- but sometimes, you can win merely by entering. In fact,
S over at Misconceptions about Conception was doing a book give away a few weeks ago, and to enter you just had to leave a comment on the relevant post. So I did -- and it turns out, I was the only one. Whoohoo, guaranteed free book! It arrived on Tuesday, I took a long hot soaky bath that night and read about 3/4 of it, and finished it up last night.
Which is a nice segue both into today's prompt, which is favorite quote. Easy:
Vita sine literis mors est
Life without letters is death.
It's the signature line in my email. I discovered the motto when I was converting index-card-catalog of Special Collection's bookplate collection into an electronic format. Lots of different people used it, so I didn't feel bad appropriating it. Strictly speaking, it's "Life without books is death", but I like the version with alliteration. I've posted before how I find a significant mental health benefit from surrounding myself with books; I can't settle into a house that I'm living in until my books are unpacked. And it's directly related to quantity, too -- the more books I can see, the happier I am (something which Joel is not too keen on...). When we received the second half of our books from storage in spring, it just felt so good to have not just one or two book cases filled with books, but walls lined with them, all 1800+ of them. And with receiving all these books has come the joy of re-reading -- but that is a topic for another post, one that has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time, but needs to wait for one more book before I write it.
etfb, you have to say yes, because you've been doing NaBloPoFiveyears or so). Do I think I can find the time to say something not inane every day this month, including the days I'm traveling? Hmmm...I know at least two, if not more, days this month where I'm guaranteed not to have internet access. Do I want to set myself up to fail?But on the other hand, if I post tonight, I can always decide later, whereas if I don't post, I'm already out of the game. And something I learned as a kid is that sometimes, if you don't enter, you can't win -- but sometimes, you can win merely by entering. In fact,
S over at Misconceptions about Conception was doing a book give away a few weeks ago, and to enter you just had to leave a comment on the relevant post. So I did -- and it turns out, I was the only one. Whoohoo, guaranteed free book! It arrived on Tuesday, I took a long hot soaky bath that night and read about 3/4 of it, and finished it up last night.
Which is a nice segue both into today's prompt, which is favorite quote. Easy:
Vita sine literis mors est
Life without letters is death.
It's the signature line in my email. I discovered the motto when I was converting index-card-catalog of Special Collection's bookplate collection into an electronic format. Lots of different people used it, so I didn't feel bad appropriating it. Strictly speaking, it's "Life without books is death", but I like the version with alliteration. I've posted before how I find a significant mental health benefit from surrounding myself with books; I can't settle into a house that I'm living in until my books are unpacked. And it's directly related to quantity, too -- the more books I can see, the happier I am (something which Joel is not too keen on...). When we received the second half of our books from storage in spring, it just felt so good to have not just one or two book cases filled with books, but walls lined with them, all 1800+ of them. And with receiving all these books has come the joy of re-reading -- but that is a topic for another post, one that has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time, but needs to wait for one more book before I write it.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-01 11:13 pm (UTC)When I first started my apparently interminable Year(s) Of Living Loquaciously, I had a couple of spare blog posts I wrote in advance in case I couldn't think of something to write. After a couple of weeks I figured the chance of me ever running out of stuff to blather about was so remote that it wasn't worth worrying about, but that could be me.
Just don't insist to yourself that you're going to maintain any kind of standard, because that can force you to be too critical and throw out a good idea before you know it's good. Just write. My vulnerability to writer's block has basically disappeared because I just write something every day, and I'm fairly sure my ability to express myself has improved (slowly) over time, so it's worth doing. Go for it!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-02 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-02 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-02 09:54 am (UTC)I read blogs on my phone during Gwen's morning feeding (when I otherwise keep lights off in hopes that I can convince her to go back to bed afterwards), and it is nice when there's people I can rely on every day to have something for me. :)