Friday, December 01, 2006

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I just have a few more thoughts about yesterday's post and life in general. So here I go, in case anyone's still out there. (I'd link to the people I mean, but they tend to have deleted or otherwise abandoned their blogs lately. That's a whole other post that will require a soapbox and a bit more energy than I've got today, so this is what you get for now.)

I tend to be pretty proud of myself for keeping at this whole "write a novel in a month" thing, you know, just a couple thousand words a day and eventually you're there. My progress bars show constant, unspectacular progress from day 1 to day 30 when I finally crossed the finish line with 12 whole hours to go. (Woohoo!)

On the other hand, The Man (TM) also signed up for NaNo this year. He sat at about 1500 words for half the month. Then he got up to a few thousand. Then he seemed to give up (well, OK, and had the flu for Thanksgiving break). But this week, he threw it into gear and was up to 22,000 words by Wednesday. So, only 28,000 more to go in 48 hours. Well, I'll tell you what: He put on a burst of speed and made up all that ground and an extra 2,000 to boot. (I have to say I am really proud of him.)

But all this reminded me of the year I was 11, when a kind, well-meaning teacher wrote a poem for all the girls in my church class. In it, she tried to emphasize the strengths of each girl with the intent, I'm sure, of helping us feel good about ourselves. Unfortunately, she had no tact. So, she described one girl as "the pretty one" and another as "the happy one" and so on. Guess what I was. That's right, "the steady one"; the one who always kept at a task until it was done but didn't (apparently) have much else to recommend her. I was an ugly, fat, bespectacled creature, it's true. And very shy, with untreated depression. But I did not feel flattered by this poetic description of my strong point, as you might guess.

But looking at myself now, I know that she was right. I would never be "the pretty one" or "the happy one" or even "the friendly one" but I've remained steady all these years. Yay me. It may be my saving grace during these lean times, though. Yay me.

3 comments:

KoryO said...

Eh, could have been worse. I was told by a teacher that I would end up in jail one day (yeah, me & my mouth....bad combo for years.) I kind of did, but not in the way she envisioned. I don't think she meant "being able to leave any time you want without the guards tackling you before you got to the exit....and even waving to you as you go..."

She would have had a heart attack if she would have seen me in uniform! I'm just bummed I didn't get that chance. It would have been priceless!

Anonymous said...

I had a teacher once tell me after I had explained an experiment to the class " Well I guess the opera's not over till you know who sings"

I sang at his church a few years back. I think it nearly leveled him

Scone said...

"Friendly"? I'm pretty sure I've never been friendly, Jack. You must be thinking of another cousin. :) But um, thanks. Sorta.