On a walk along the lake the other day, I came across this set of footprints. Evidence that I am not alone.
I am madly writing about Swiss postdocs, stem cells and Halloween parties. Let me just say this: all those authors who say that the characters in their books take on lives of their own and then proceed to take over your life? They’re not making it up. I sit down, prepared to write one thing, and two thousand words later, something completely different has happened. Most of the time it’s a big improvement over what I had planned. Sometimes, I just stare at the screen and think, how did that happen? WTF?
The good news is that I may actually reach my NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month.
The bad news is that this means I cannot devote much (if any) time to writing on the blog.
What do other bloggers do when they run out of time? Well, judging from what I’ve seen out there, they do one of three things:
- post garbage
- open the blog up to guest posters
- post pictures
I don’t believe in polluting cyberspace. So #1 is out.
I had the opportunity to guest post on Running and Rambling not too long ago. It was great. So here goes: You are all hereby invited to contribute a guest post. I can’t guarantee I’ll post it (see #1 above), and I can’t guarantee if I do post it I won’t edit it a little, but if you can live with those possibilities, send me something (here’s the e-mail address).
(I’d ask Dave, but if past experience is any indication, I’ll get his contribution sometime in mid-2012, and that doesn’t really help me right now. But Dave, if you’re reading this, feel free to post something.)
Until I receive your masterpieces, then, I’m stuck with #3. As it happens, I often take a walk in the afternoon to clear my brain, so one day last week I took a camera along. The footprints were obvious. The rest – well, think elements. Ground. Water. Air.
The water in the lake is so clear this time of year – if it weren’t so cold I’d jump in. Maybe I will anyway.
To all my American friends, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. This year, I’m celebrating Thanksgiving no less than three times – Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s one advantage of being an expat … improvisation!