50,000 and Now ZZZzzzz . . .

If you dropped in to Writing in the Buff on Monday, you know I’ve been racing to hit my NaNo 50,000 (which I did around one a.m. Yay!). You also know that I promised to tell you the naked truth about ZZZzzzz.

Multiple Z’s can stand for many things.  I might use those Z’s to indicate my hubby snoozing, steak sizzling, or a bee buzzing around my rose garden. Z is like the poster child for onomatopoeia.

Considering all that Z has to offer, one would think that when I participated in the A to Z Challenge last April that finding a topic for the multitasking Z would be easy.  Not so.  I jotted notes about everything from zippers to Zorro. Nothing seemed appropriate for the final day of the Challenge, especially since my month long theme was “Pawsitive Pondering.” What the heck would dogs have to say about the letter “Z?”

The fog lifted when I saw the photo below of Rigby, our yellow Lab, and Special Agent McGee, my daughter’s mini Dachshund. He’s how those Z’s played out:

Pawsitive Pondering

Rigby and Special Agent McGee

 Z is for:

Zest + Zeal = Zen

Live every day with a 

Zest for Life and a Zeal for Love 

so you may achieve your 

Zen of Being.

Peace out.

That's my summation of how I believe our furry pals deal with the day to day effort of living.  Those hairy little smarties.

The cool thing about Zest + Zeal = Zen is its positive application to anything we’re passionate about. Family, writing, music, basket-weaving—whatever we polish up with Zest and Zeal will turn around and gift us with Zen. It’s a pretty cool equation, and that’s saying a lot coming from a lady who would rather hear Gilbert Gottfried recite “War and Peace” than spend even a moment alone with anything resembling a math problem.

So where am I going with this? Well, looking back at the last 30 days, during which time I put ooh-gobs of Zest and Zeal into my writing, I’m happy to report that I’ve achieved a certain Zen. I wrote like mad to hit 50,000 and I’ve got the fleshed out bones of a middle grade novel as my prize. The story has a life now, and is thankfully no longer residing solely in my imagination. Also, my fingers have stopped burning up the keyboard (for the moment) and my laptop is so happy to be rid of me that it’s considering a celebratory trip to Aruba without me.

To what areas of your life do you apply the Zest + Zeal = Zen equation? Does that formula work for you? If you have an example to share, I’d love to hear it.  Catch me quick, though. It’s been an exhausting month, and I’m ready to ZZZzzzz……

See you next for Book Blurb Friday!

Lisa