The transition from summer to autumn flew by. October passed by in the blink of an eye and here we are on November 1. Life moves quickly, especially since I am still adjusting to new routines and schedules. So, I haven’t posted since October 2.

I do genuinely like writing this blog! I like feeling connected with others who have done TAPIF or lived in France or who have similar interests to me. I like organizing my thoughts and experiences into stories I can share. But I obviously have a motivation problem…

So, I decided to commit myself to National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo, an off-shoot of the popular NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where hundreds of bloggers commit to posting once per day for the month of November. I’m hoping this will help motivate me to turn the dozens of notes in my drafts folder into published posts at last!! So far I’ve added my name to the BlogHer blogroll and the YeahWrite #NoMo blogroll. Get ready for posts about places I traveled to 5 months ago, as well as updates about what I’m doing now! My other goal is to seek out new blogs to interact with, so I want to try to read/comment on at least five other NaBloPoMo blogs each day.

My mom is a huge participant in the community of teachers at Teacher’s College in NYC who teach ELA through a curriculum called Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project which teaches that to be a writer, you have to live like a writer. Confession: I don’t usually think of myself as a “writer.” I don’t have any plans to write the next great American novel, I don’t submit to journals or publishing houses…I mean, I can’t even get myself to post on my own blog more than twice a month! But, I want to see how publishing something every day for 30 days changes that mentality. I hope to expand that definition of “a writer” to include people like me, with no professional aspirations, just an interest in sharing with others.

So, wish me luck. Or better yet, join me! Let’s see how this goes! ❂

UPDATE: I posted this 27 minutes ago and dutifully went to read some posts from fellow NaBloPoMo-ers, which is where I stumbled upon NanoPoblano, run by a blogger called Rarasaur. It’s basically a subgroup of NaBloPoMo who are cheerleaders for eachother, “because, really, NaBloPoMo is just too hard to say.” Obviously I am partial to all things having to do with dinosaurs and puns, so I decided to add my name to their writing challenge team as well!! This just got even more fun! #TeamTinyPeppers!