Tomorrow is Launch Day!

busy bee

​THE CHALLENGE:
            On my 59th birthday – tomorrow, August 28, 2019 – I begin a one-year blog project. I am giving myself 60,000 words to record my 60th year, in 365 posts.
            As a writer who lacks the compulsion to write, I have long envied other writers (there seem to be legions of them) who MUST write EVERY DAY because they are simply incapable of not writing. When it comes to not writing, my abilities are stellar. However, rather than rest on the laurels of my high-achieving not writing performance, I have set myself a daily writing challenge. Here’s a bit of background.
            Not quite ten years ago I launched my first daily writing blog challenge, titled “A Year of Getting Up to Meet the Day.” Another skill I possess is an innate ability to not get up in the morning. Some say they can’t possibly sleep past 8am. Amateurs. Lingering in bed, napping and dozing until the brunch hour, is my delicious. I decided to combine my writing challenge with an early rise challenge, just to see how it would feel. Starting on January 1st, 2010, the year that I turned 50, I was outdoors for sunrise every day for 365 days. Then I wrote and posted a blog, usually with photos. The success of that feat provided me with years of happy complacency.
            Tomorrow is the first day of my 60th year (as my Dad would surely have pointed out if he were still living). I anticipate great things this year – the birth of my first grandchild, preparations for my daughter’s wedding, and working towards the 2021 publication of my first book. Surely there will be other surprises, good and bad. Maybe one of those surprises will be that I write every day.
​            Any year is potentially worth recording, but I’d like to highlight the dynamism that still infuses life for the no longer young. Yes, I embrace the empowering reality of being no longer young. That’s part of the point here.
           
            Now for a couple of ground rules.

• Inspired by the spare writing of Lydia Davis, I am holding myself to 60,000 words total for the year. That’s an average of 164 words a day.
• Titles don’t count in the word count. Also, the daily word count does not count in the word count.
• In keeping with brevity, I am limiting myself to one photograph per day.
• I will aim for morning posts, but commit only to posting each day before the date changes.  

 
            Today’s indulgence is a profusion of words to set the stage. The rules start tomorrow (really!). Please join me either in silence or with comment contributions. I would love to have your company.