A Year of Thirty Days Check-In (and a Tune for Tuesday)

First, a song for your energy level on this odd rainy day in February:

The first month of my Year of Thirty Days is over. 

I finished another Whole30 and Yoga With Adriene's 30 Days of Yoga Camp. I feel pretty good, the same as I felt at the halfway point. I'm not gonna lie, though. On my first day of freedom from the Whole30, I ate a soft pretzel and drank a coconut milk stout. They were both excellent. That being said, I'm going to stick with paleo eating most of the time. I'll let you know how it goes! I want to write about how I feel now, but prior posts say it all. 

In a nutshell:

-I'm more flexible and my body feels good.

-I have an awesome morning yoga habit established.

-My skin is glowing. 

-My clothes fit better and I feel like a fly girl.  

Now... February's 30, er, 28 days. 

If you know me, you know I have two books in mind. A novel and a teacher book. I'm working on the teacher book right now, but...

...you guys, it is really hard to write a book. 

Do you ever feel like you're faking everything you've ever done? It's called Imposter Syndrome and I'm suffering from it. I heard this TED Talk from Kirsty Walker on Imposter Syndrome and it really hit home, especially as I try to write this book. 

I question everything I do and all of my past experiences. A day in the life of a negative self-talking, self-doubting person is not cool. 

The goal for February is to write for this book every single day. I have some deadlines to meet that aren't self-imposed, so I've got to put some elbow grease into this. 

In fact, I want this post to be longer, but I've already been writing for close to three hours, so I've got to go watch Freaks and Geeks for the tenth time to unwind from all of this writing. 

Peace.

I'm Going to Write a Book...

...says every English teacher/former English teacher I've ever known, including me.

But really, I've been sitting on this book for more than ten years now. I've started it in my mind while walking the dogs countless times, but unfortunately, that doesn't count.

One of my 30b430 goals was to write at least one chapter of said book, which I did during National Novel Writing Month in 2012. However, I absolutely hated what I came up with. I can't even post it here. I can't even look at it right now.

Two years later, I have some inspiration. I think it's because I'm out of the classroom and done with my Master's and I need a new project. I was mostly inspired by NPR-- of course.

I wrote a micro story. From there, I've been organizing documents, doing research, and talking, talking, talking about it with friends and family (my apologies for not being able to talk about anything else). I've realized a few things from all of this pre-pre-writing:
1) I write better in vignettes and I need to stick with that.
2) I'm pretty good at research and I need to do something with that.
3) It's okay that it took this long to really start.
4) This is going to be hard.

I realize that it is irritating that I'm not saying what this book is about, but I'm not ready yet. In the next few months I'm hoping to...
1) Meet with an archivist who will help me figure out who to best transcribe documents, file, and organize them.
2) Transcribe documents, file, and organize them.
3) Write the prologue and first few chapters.
4) Complete a few interviews.

We'll see where this goes.