Those of you who also read along at Hour Of Scampering already know that for the past month I’ve been comitted to the 2011 NaNoWriMo. The challenge is to write a 50 thousand word piece of fiction. I vassilated about whether or not I would participate when I first discovered it. Which meant that when I jumped in, I was six days behind everyone else. I had to pump out over 8000 words AND meet the daily target.

You might think I’d be nuts to do this. And of course you are right. However, I had a mission, a point to prove (more to myself because no one would ever see my story). It was a real challenge, and a daunting one at first. I did think that I could not possibly catch up, then not suffer from burnout. I did catch up (by day 8 – a good day, a holy day ) and to my surprise I did not suffer burn out.

Burn out is an issue with any project – and of course in the context of one’s spiritual discipline, and practice it can be a real killer; especially in our Indie (OC IC ISM) context where sometimes the challenges of being Independent Catholic can be overwhelming.

How did I avoid burn out participating in NaNoWriMo? I think a key feature is that it is a time limited activity. I only had 30 days to finish the text (24 in my case). You might think that there can be no practical time limitation for spiritual discipline. We do however, have one; a very reliable, consistant one – the liturgical cycle. The cycle of feasts, fasts, and festivals provides any number of select time units that can be used to good effect for spiritual discipline. Consider the effect of Lent as just one example.

During Lent we refrain from eating certain foods, we are perhaps more conscious of prayer and liturgical worship, we are more conscientious about our activity in the community through acts of charity. During Lent we cram a great deal into this experience we call the spiritual life, spiritual discipline. It is a wonder that so many more believers don’t burn out during the month.

This is a nice lead in to the next point about not giving up during NaNoWriMo. My daily activity (my praxis if you will) was structured – it had distinct manageable units. Each day the goal was just under 2000 words. That sounds like a real challenge, but you would be surprised how much you can write in a few focused 20 minute stints. Trying to do it all, and trying to do it all at once, certainly would have resulted in burn out. Managing to break it down into reasonable, thoughtful segments that progressively add to the whole made visualising the goal of 50 thousand words less daunting, more possible.

These two things – along with a few new good habits, and reviving a few old good habits – made achieving 50 thousand words possible. But it also leaves me looking forward to participating again next time. And it leaves open the possibility of participating in other such programs with a different focus – weaving, drawing, or even exercise related. In essence a good practice, a good discipline does not exhaust you. It leaves you at the end of the journey looking forward to the next project, the next challenge. You want more, not less (or none at all as might be the case for burn out).