A major milestone...

 On June the 2nd I hit 1,800 days of writing in a row.  That means I wrote something every day, whether my column or fiction.  I wrote when sick, when depressed, when life threw me major curves.

That's a lot of days.  It is also a lot of words - according to my calculations, I wrote 1,083,432 words in that time.  Yup.  Over a million.

That is a lot, but it breaks down to about 593 words a day.  That's slightly over two pages.  I can usually crank that out in a half hour or so.  And I'm not a fast typist.

Let's say you only wrote 250 words a day.  For me, that's about fifteen minutes, but let's say it takes you a half hour.  And you do it every day. 

In a week, you'll have written 1,750 words  In a year, 91,000 - the equivalent of a novel and maybe a short story or two.  If you went 1,800 days of writing 250 words a day, you'd write 450,000 - almost half a million.

I tell you this to encourage you that wherever you are in a writing journey, little things add up.  Don't give up - keep plugging away and you will see your efforts grow.  And never underestimate the power of a streak.

Finally, celebrate your wins.  I went to Culver's and got a cheeseburger and a turtle sundae to reward myself for 1,800 days.  Remember - little wins count.   Be proud of them and build on them.

Keep on keeping on!

A Milestone Reached

 This is being posted late because I wanted to do my daily writing first.  Why was that important?

Today was a special day.  Today marked the 900th day in a row of writing for me.

That's 900 days of getting at least a few words down.  That's doing it despite fatigue, sickness, and grief.  That's squeezing it in when I've been busy and burning the midnight oil to finish a project.

It feels good to hit it.  For me, a streak is incredibly motivating.  The longer it goes, the harder it is to break.  I can look at the march of stars on my calendar and see that every day, I accomplished this one thing.

Will it last forever?  Who knows?  So far, Covid hasn't stopped it, a death in the family hasn't stopped it, my lack of discipline hasn't stopped it.  I'm not saying it can't be stopped.  But so far, it's healthy.

My next goal?  1,000 days, of course.  

What motivates you in your passion?