National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner.

This is the time of year I normally gather a group of students, a few close friends, and we challenge each other to write fifty thousand words of a book while encouraging each other along the way. The challenge is very motivating.

However, after doing this for close to ten years, I’m bowing out.

While I do really well with ridiculous challenges (writing a book in a month, reading the Bible in two, etc.) and they help me accomplish great goals in a short amount of time, I find I burn out at the end of them.

While recognizing my mind works great in sprints, what I really need is the motivation of smaller steps compounded over time. It’s the small, consistent steps that lead to the biggest changes in the end.

After all, for a writer, every month should be novel writing month.

Time to set my sights smaller and for much longer.