In the States, November is the month for all sorts of things.  I don’t know why, but it is.  In 2000, National Novel Writing Month was begun when Chris Bayley launched an interactive web-site that encouraged writers to produce 50,000 words or more of a novel. (Here is the site, but it’s too late to join this year: www.nanowrimo.org/).  The year earlier, Bayley had started the novel writing month in July, but moved it to  November the following year to take advantage of the more miserable weather.

Anyway, there was a lot of press in the weeks leading up to November 1, and I had toyed with the idea of doing it on my own without “registering” on the official website.  I had already 1700 words of something I had been working on, so I figure I’d cheat a little and have a head start when November came around. Well now it is November 4 and I still have the original 1700 hundred words.  November has produced ZERO!

I also figured I would try to cut back a little on the drink and use November as a dry month–sort of like what some people do during Lent.  I thought maybe it would get me feeling a bit more energized, a little more clear headed, repair some brain cells, and get a little further along on my “works in progress” (see paragraph above!)

Well it’s now November 4th.  I didn’t succeed on the 1st–a few beers with pizza.  On the 2nd, I stopped for dinner at my local and had several pints of Guinness and then a couple of glasses of wine when I returned home. Yesterday, the 3rd,  I was at a dinner party where the wine was flowing voluminously, and today I am invited again somewhere for dinner.  I plan to drink water at the dinner tonight and start my dry month from there.  We shall see.

But to be truthful, I haven’t been too successful for the first three days.

And then the oddest of all the November month “challenges,” this month is the November Mustache Growing Month for Prostate Health.  Entitled MOVEMBER, the event has been around for nine years now and is instituted to heighten awareness of all men’s health issues. There are celebrities involved, a Mobile App that allows you to time-lapse record the results of your growing and share with other participants, and professionally produced videos celebrating hairy upper lips.  I am sure it is a very good cause (my father died of prostate cancer) but Mustache Growing is very scary territory.  What happened to the good old 5k run?

Anyway, scarred by too many images of bad mustaches, this is one event I am not getting close to, not by a whisker.

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