Over the last few years, he has been very intentional and consistent with his writing practice. He has established writing goals and worked toward them. More importantly, his goals are well-defined and within his control. Rather than say, “I want to get 5 stories published this year,” he has said, “I want to write 10 stories this year.” The publication part is not up to him, but he has not neglected it either.

He also made goals along the lines of, “I want to send out 10 stories this year.” Again, not counting rejections or acceptances but instead focusing on the submissions, focusing on getting his work in front of others even when it is scary, even when it might be painful.

He has been sowing the seeds of craft, and production, and submission. And this has paid off.

He is now in a season where he can see the fruits of those seeds. Granted, he is a talented writer, and he has spent time developing his craft. But those seeds would be wasted if he wasn’t putting it to use. It likely wouldn’t get much further than his own computer if he wasn’t willing to send it out for rejection.

I, on the other hand, have received no rejection letters in the last year. That is not a point to celebrate because it means either I have not been sending anything out or I haven’t been ambitious enough with my submissions (it’s the former in this case). Instead, I have been sowing other seeds. Seeds that have nothing to do with writing or seeds that have kept me back as a writer. Seeds of doubt, seeds of slumber, seeds of fear.

As writers, as humans really, we are constantly making little decisions, choosing minor angles, that will ultimately determine our path. While we might not see the fruits of those choices for months or years down the road, the fruits will always come. We never know which particular seed will ultimately be productive, but we can move forward confident in the knowledge that some of them will yield fruit.

We don’t choose whether or not to plant seeds, we don’t choose which ones will take root, we only choose which seeds to plant.

I am proud of this friend and happy for him. I’m also glad that he continues to challenge me to do more with my craft. As is often the case, I need to do some closer examination of what my seed pile looks like and what my planting strategy is going to be.

End of analogy.

Fifty, it turns out, is pretty much as arbitrary as you might think. I doesn’t signify anything. And when it comes to posting everyday, fifty is hardly a milestone. If they handed out little plaques for blogging like they do at some companies for years of service, fifty blog posts wouldn’t even get a mention. It would be like giving a plaque for being at the company for nine whole months.

No cake. No speech. No one giving any sort of attention.

Yet here I am going on and on about it. Mostly, that’s because it means something to me. I keep talking about showing up and doing the work, and I would feel pretty crummy if I weren’t making an effort to do that myself.

I could do a lot more, of course, but this isn’t the moment for that line of thinking. This is just the time where I say I’ve done something for fifty straight days even though it wasn’t always easy. Even if it wasn’t always good.

Because it hasn’t all been bad either. That’s the beauty of coming back each day. Some stuff will stick eventually.

I suppose that’s enough back patting for minor achievement. Now to make the next fifty posts better than the previous. Also, I just realized that I haven’t yet copied over the entry I had to post on Facebook because of server issues, which means that my math is screwed up and this is all just a little less relevant. But, like I said, the numbers are all fairly arbitrary, so I doubt it makes much difference. 

Have a good week. 

Small victories can also be dangerous, however. They can allow us to slack off when we shouldn’t be, or indulge in ways that we might not otherwise. We feel that we have done some good and deserve to be rewarded. We have to remember that we have larger accomplishments on the horizon. We are working toward something bigger, and the small victory is not the end point. It’s just evidence that we are on the right path.

So, thanks for following along so far. If this pace remains the same (and it may well change as we make adjustments), we will be at one hundred posts before summer is in full swing.