My 500th Blog Post Spectacular!

So: That was 500 blog posts.

When I started this project three-ish years ago, I did so with a simple goal in mind. I would post a piece of fiction every day for as many days as I could sustain, targeting 365 stories, most of them drabble length, in 365 days.

By the end of that first year, I’d amassed just over 300 stories, having missed days due to illness, a trip to Las Vegas and just general life getting in the way related things. But that’s okay, because the number 365 was never, I realized, really my goal to this project, though at the time I thought it was.

My actual goal was to give myself clearly defined writing goals and a clearly defined regular deadline, in the hopes that this would keep me writing every day and, by doing so, help me develop the discipline necessary for the sorts of longer projects I hoped to take on.

In the years since beginning this blog, I’ve amassed 500 blog posts, as well as a debut novel, Broken Escalator, recently published, a number of short stories published on various podcasts and webzines, and the ability to state without doubt: I have succeeded. I am a more disciplined writer than I was when this blog began, I do write more frequently and more consistently, words do flow freer as a result of my constant work and I do get more done.

Maybe the quality of my writing is also slightly better, but I’ll let you judge that.

So yes, this blog has helped me enormously, and for that I’m grateful. I’m also grateful to those of you who’ve been reading along with me, first daily, then weekly as I needed my writing time to focus on longer works. I’ve appreciated the support and the feedback I’ve received here, and I’m glad to know I’ve managed to entertain you as I went. And I assure you, I will continue to do so going forward.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be halfway through my second NaNoWriMo novel, “A Very Munsi Christmas” by the time you read this. I’ve a number of short stories slated to appear on various podcasts in the coming year, am looking into collecting the podcasted stories with a “best of” from here for ebook release at some point in the new year, and of course will be continuing to post here regularly, both stories and, I hope, more essays as I use my blog more for, you know, blogging. So don’t worry there. This isn’t a goodbye of any sort, simply the marking of a milestone.

My point? Don’t really have one. I just spent three years writing between two and seven short stories a week, 500 is a round number, and I thought I deserved a victory lap. I feel like I’ve accomplished something here, minor though it may seem to some, and I’m pretty damn proud of it.

Thanks for the moment of your time to watch me pat myself on the back. My next post will be more entertaining, I swear…