498 and Counting

I am approaching 500 consecutive (daily) posts. The majority were newly written in the past eighteen months although some were reruns. I justified those by thinking that many people who read my blog weren’t born when my earliest pieces were posted. Just kidding. They may have been born, may even have been adults, but they hadn’t yet started worrying about their children or aging or hearing loss or dogs that chew books and cloth napkins.

What I learned from posting nearly 500 consecutive days is this:

Posting every day and having some posts liked by many and others liked by few is very freeing. I don’t know the magic. I just keep saying what I have to say which is sometimes wonderful and illuminating but often lame and pedestrian. I decided it all evens out and isn’t worth worrying about.

I depend on the daily discipline and would miss it if I quit. I’ve thought of taking a vacation when I hit 500 but I fear lassitude would quickly take over. Every day not doing it would make doing it more formidable. If you walk three miles a day every day for ten years and then quit to lay in a hammock for a month, walking around the block becomes a major proposition.

There is always something to write about. I complained once in a writers workshop that I’d run out of things to write about and an 80-year old woman who wrote fascinating character sketches about store clerks riding buses and going home alone to drink tea scolded me like I was a cynical teenager who knew nothing about real life or real writing. So I changed my tune on the spot.

500 consecutive posts is an accomplishment. Like jumping rope 10,000 times or swimming 100 laps. Reading a book a week or standing on one’s head for a solid hour. I would put it right up there with standing on one’s head for a solid hour. Absolutely.

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Photo by rishikesh yogpeeth on Unsplash