It’s the 17th and the month is half over.  I know some of us, myself among them, have not written as much as we’d hope at the bright start of NaNoWriMo.  But it ain’t over til it’s over and there’s still time to write.  It doesn’t matter what happened the past 16 days.  We can’t change them.  We can’t go back and do them over.  We can’t do them differently.  They’re done, and what’s done is done.

So where does that leave us?

Some of us will give up.  We will say, it’s just too much water under the bridge, too much time passed me by and there’s no use.

Don’t do that.

Keep writing.  There are more days left in this month and more words left in your brain.  You owe it to yourself to let them out, to give yourself the chance and the gift of hope.

In running a marathon, experienced runners know what beginning runners haven’t learned yet:  the marathon isn’t won in the first five or even ten miles.  It’s won when you hit the wall at mile twenty or twenty-one and you just can’t run anymore.  You continue, you put one foot in front of the other, and you slog your way through to the finish line.

Life is like that sometimes.  Don’t give up, don’t surrender.  Stay strong; borrow the courage of giants.  You may not be part of Seal Team Nine but you can do what they do:  keep going.  Keep writing.

Keep going.

Keep writing.

Hoo-rah, baby.  Hoo-rah.