Let me tell you a story. Two fighters get into a ring. 15 rounds are on the clock and as the time runs you see these two fighters beat the holy hell out of each other. Swing, counter, swing planning, counter planning. Then sometimes they will just come together and beat the holy hell out of each other. After a while Other fighters look at that match and they go these two had something. Between them, whether it was respect or hatred or just there was something additional there, that’s a rivalry.

Five times. This will be. This month makes the fifth time me and my rival and Game of tones are competing against each other and the score is they have won twice against me. I have won twice against them. They got a third event where I could not compete, so they have three victories to two for me, but in competition against each other. Out of four times it’s evenly split two Vs two. So. This is the reason why I also had to come back. Now. There was part of me hoping I could get by and not have to deal with my rival. I am laughing as I write this because it’s almost poetic where I’ve wanted to get to three victories. They got to it first because I had to go to my schooling and focus more on that. They are now in the crosshairs and for me to get it, I have to get by someone who’s been essentially a thorn in my backside for this competition.

We will go to the final round. Both of us have lives that are moving faster. This may very well be the last time both of us can do this kind of an event against the other. Inside us is also that little bit that I know they have as well. They go “OK, can I do it a third time?”  I wonder the same.

The person that will win this? We’ve had to go through hell as a writer because there was someone in your shadow pushing you just to do that little bit more, that extra repetition, that extra page, to put it how close we have been. For the four times we have competed against each other, we have never been more than 5000 words apart. 5000 sounds like a lot and for those who are new to this, it sounds Titanic. For those who are doing 500,000 that’s less than a couple hours. Three of the most recent times it’s been less than 2500 separating us. Anyone who does anything in competition. If you do something very well, let’s say you are a running back and you get 10,000 yards overseas and you make new records in your area. You do everything and when you look at the national records for the year, you realize you’re second by 10 yards.

Going into business, you have a rival business and they make $1,000,000. You are awarded as the best new business in the city because you made $1,001,000. The difference is  minuscule. It feels like inches and when you have gone miles to lose by inches hurts. It stings, it burns, it makes you swear. Funnily enough, we both have done it. Part of me wonders if I can do that again, and I cannot tell you that I can. Because if this is the last round, it would kill me if three separate times someone got by me for the sake of maybe an hour’s worth of work in a month-long competition.

What has to be the greatest piece of comedy in all of this is that neither one of us would be so strong in this kind of event, or writing on the whole, if it weren’t for the other across from us. Pushing us just to get that extra little bit more out of us. The reason I use dictation sometimes now is because of them. During the last event, we were together after the second week. Both of us had put in more than 50,000 words daily. We also made a novel. Both of us had made separate novels in a one-week time frame. Now you may hear me say 50,000 words and novel interchangeably. Some people may go that’s too short to be a novel. I use this because as it has been practiced from National Novel Writing Month, the idea the goal is to make a 50,000 word piece of writing. Now, depending on who you talk to, it could be more, it could be less, yeah. 50,000 in any case, is the goal that everyone understands.

One more time, one more challenge and one more chance to change the past. You get one bullet to do so and you ever find yourself in a position like mine, then you will do everything you can to make sure it goes to where it needs to go. How it is done though may be them ore interesting thing because win lose or draw there will be some changes. We will not be the same people we were when we started this challenge.

The final round is going to start and this is going to be the rubber match between me and my rival all for the sake of seeing not only who can do more but just as a point of pride between us. It will be tough but when the time starts working against you it is when we will start to see the test on the soul. It is never when things are going well, that you find your drive for something. It is only when things go badly, or you face an opponent worthy of it where you have to check your gut and see if there is enough there to get by them.

Part of me is also sad, when you have someone like that you expect them in other challenge to almost be there, especially if you put a lot of time into competing against them. Finality, that colors everything and it makes you see exactly where the story between the two of your ends. I guess in a couple weeks, we are going to find out.

Stay strong