My Nonprofit Reviews

There comes a time in nearly every life, sometimes more than once, when a man or a woman must stand for something. Finding that ‘something’ may be found and discovered with concerted effort, or you might just stumble upon it one day and say, “What a great idea. I should do this.”

It is rare, I believe, that anyone stumbles upon a great idea or life mission and then finds or discovers completeness to life. Likewise, I believe, those who plan for, execute to perfection and live the so-called ideal life of collage, internship, ‘linked-in’ and eventually married with more cars in the garage than children in bedrooms, more debt than substantive values and less time to make love than to screw-in a light bulb, are also less than what they once perceived their future selves to be.

So, where does that lead?

If I were twenty-five again, I’d say the possibilities are endless. However, at fifty-six? It is not so much endless are the possibilities now, it is the possibilities left endlessly abandoned. Such is the case of many talented writers who curse their inability to complete a novel-length work of fiction. I know, I was one of those writers.

Then, one day I did indeed stumble upon a website declaring November to be National Novel Writing Month. I have never heard of such a thing. I read the story of how this event came to be and the rules for joining the contest to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. I thought it insane to think that anyone might actually achieve such a feat, but the more I read and realized that tens of thousands have done just that over the course of this organizations short life, I became remarkably motivated.

I knew I had a story to tell; it had been rattling around in my head for ten years. Because of this organization and its mission to give writers of all ages the motivation, innovation, and structure needed to create from scratch a work of art in the form of novel-length fiction, I dedicated myself for the month of November 2010 to write, and write, write until done. And, I did just that and completed my novel and proudly became a winner of the NaNoWriMo contest. I was not alone. Literally hundreds of thousands of writers all around the world have benefited from this organization.

I will be participating in future events.

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