It’s hard to believe that Halloween is in just two days. Soon, my four and eight-year-old will be dressed up like ninjas, scouring our East Orlando neighborhood for the sweetest treats on Earth.
And two hours after that, as they drift off to Candyland, their dad will display ninja skills of his own to collect his dad tax and scour their candy cache for his share of any Kit Kats that he can find.
For me, the days seem to be moving more quickly now than they did earlier in the year. In three and a half weeks, we’ll be eating Thanksgiving dinner. Eight weeks from today is Christmas Eve.
I just can’t believe it. This is usually around the time of year when most people will take their foot off the gas. They’ll sit back and coast for the next two months while things start winding down.
I’m all for enjoying the holidays. But there’s one thing that’s keeping me from coasting for the rest of 2016: my list of goals for the year. And the one staring me in the face is ‘finish writing novel #3’.
Like anything in life, that means I’ll have to deal with some trade-offs. I may be a little sleep-deprived for a while. I may not be able to write this blog every Saturday morning like I want to.
And I might not even make it. Maybe I’ll finish it in January. But would that be so bad? A friend once told me that if we try to chase perfection, we’ll usually only end up catching excellence. There’s still time left for us to catch one of the two and make a dent in this world, if we choose to.
Because our story has not been fully written yet. Most people give up on their goals before January is even over. They shrug their shoulders and think, Maybe next year. Well, how about this year?
We still have 64 more days left to write the ending we want. I’m going to try to make mine count.