Make November Tolerable

Back when I launched this blog in 2011, I blogged all the time. I was like a kid on Christmas, every day, waking up so jazzed to have his own fancy domain with pages and pictures and posts aplenty. I probably blogged 5-6 times a week for those first few weeks. And they felt like real posts, too. No filler content.

But then life happens. Work. Relationships. Other side-projects. Blogging tends to take a backseat to paying for rent or staying somewhat socially in the loop.

In recent months and years especially, my blog output has been abysmal. Once a week feels like a bare minimum for me, and lately, I’ve been lucky to blog once a month. I hate it.

November has been a historically awful month for me, and so I wanted to do something about it this year. Right from the start. From the very first day.

Maybe this idea is equally as awful as November. Or maybe it’s brilliant. The next 30 days will tell the story.

I’m gonna blog every day for the next 30 days as part of my #MakeNovemberTolerable campaign.

I don’t think I’ve blogged every single day for a month since this blog was birthed five years ago. I want to rebirth myself into that kid on Christmas morning, writing about every mundane yet meaningful thing he experiences throughout his day.

It’s all too easy to let the mundane collapse over you. To look around and feel like there’s nothing worth living for — certainly nothing worth writing about and proclaiming to the world.

My goal for the next 30 days is to blog every day, and further, not edit a single post. Stream-of-consciousness all the way. I’ve started carrying around a moleskin notebook, and I’ll start being more intentional with documenting my days: the events, the quotes, the laughs, the hurtful thoughts, the job, the coffee shops, the running trails, the support groups, the downtime with a roommate and a cat, my other blog, visitors, mountains, and sunsets over mountains.

Maybe the next month will bore you. It’s possible.

But in a very real and practical way, this month isn’t for you. Sorry, dear reader.

This month is for me. To reclaim a month of misery as beautiful, one day at a time. Maybe I won’t make November incredible by the end. But I will most certainly make it tolerable.

And if you get anything out of it, dear reader, then all the more reason for me to be glad.

So join me. Or don’t. Maybe check back in December when this little experiment has run its course. Or binge the whole month after Thanksgiving has come and gone. Or we have a new president. Or we survive the riots in the wake of having a new president.

Here’s to November and the next 30 days.

Here’s to finding beauty in God’s fingerprints scattered all over this dirt we walk.

19 Comments

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Anon 3 November 2016
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[…] is Day 2 of #MakeNovemberTolerable. Keep checking back every day this month for new stories and discoveries of beauty where beauty may […]

Kirin Pandit 2 November 2016
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Looking forward to this! I’ve never really loved November either. In school it was always when things started to get really stressful. This year, I have to leave my job at CBS this month, which I’m already super sad about. It will be nice to follow your blog on how you make November better than usual!

Kevin Browne 1 November 2016
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I’ll be following in your shadow every day Tom ???

Write your heart out Mate ❤️?❤️

Marielena 1 November 2016
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I love this idea, Tom! And I love the last sentence of your blog about “God’s fingerprints”! Go, Tom, go! Or should I say, “Write, Tom! Write!”