Milestone with Richard Bleil
Do you suppose it’s possible to write a million words? I’m closing in.
This is my one thousandth post. I started writing these about three years ago, and if you’ve read all of them (which seems unlikely), it’s been quite a feat. And, since my goal (which I have kept) has been to write at least seven hundred and fifty words for each post, that means that, as I finish writing this one, I will have written three quarters of a million words. To put that into some kind of perspective, War and Peace was a little over half a million words. Yep, I’ve written the longer War and Peace sequel.
I never really put out to write a million words, and I don’t know that I’m there yet, but I’m getting close. Because I often (and usually) go over seven hundred fifty words, I’m even closer to a million words. I started this blog as a way to keep my mind active, and I think it has done its job. Today I am keeping far busier than the days in my friend’s basement slowly decaying away into oblivion, but I’m still decaying. Just in my own place now. Some of my posts have been humorous, some short stories, some politics, some science, almost all opinion. In that time, I’ve had readers from seventy different countries around the world, and as of the writing of this blog (a week early) I have over three hundred followers. My most read post, Era’s End from March 4, had almost one hundred and seventy hits.
It’s an interesting study in what is possible with “slow and steady”. When I was young, I was told (and I believed) that it was impossible to even count to a million, and here I am maybe months away from writing over a million words. And all one post at a time. This kind of thing fascinates me, and honestly, I’ve learned a lot doing this post. For grins and giggles I calculated how much snow one has to shovel (the post “Weight 12/28/20) to have moved literally a ton of snow. As it turns out, in a standard one inch show, about the area of two cars is a ton of snow, but today I could barely get a detached door out to my storage shed. I can tell you that the door, while a heavy outside door, did not weigh a ton. But the difference is one shovelful at a time versus all at once. We, you and I, could not lift a ton right now. Well, maybe you could, but I certainly couldn’t, and yet when shoveling I’ve literally shoveled tons of snow, by hand (that will change this winter) in a single snowfall.
Sometimes, the hardest part of making a goal is just finding the motivation to begin. Had I set out to write a thousand posts, or a million words (I know I’m not there yet), it would have felt impossible, but I didn’t want to write it all at once. I just started one post at a time and set a simple goal of writing a post each day. And here I am, three quarters of a million words later. With a door out in my shed.
Today a couple of peddlers (okay, Schwann’s people) came to the house, and, yes, I bought some stuff. I need to stop doing that because, frankly, my freezer is too overflowing as it is (Food Conundrum 7/18/21), but I like their stuff. Sitting at my table, the senior person (probably training the other) noticed my Pampered Chef products and asked if I was a consultant. Okay, that’s more than enough of an invitation for me to launch into my own sales pitch, but it was fun telling them about the small appliances. I am really struggling with the business, though, as I’m finding it difficult to get people to host parties (kind of a shame since anybody who hosts in August will have a quick cooker donated in their name to House of Hope for cancer victims). I need to remember my own lessons here of how slow and steady can succeed in miraculous achievements. Why is it so hard to learn your own lessons? Even PC encourages slow and steady progress, but I’m finding it hard to keep going.
But, here I am, closing in on seven hundred fifty words on my thousandth post. Thank you to all of you who are following me, who are reading my work, and have not abandoned me when my opinions differed from yours. Frankly, you are the reason I’m still doing this, and I want to tell each and every one of you thank you for your support. And, fear not, I don’t plan on retiring from my blog anytime soon. I hope you continue reading and, more importantly, that my work gives you some joy or knowledge or benefit for your time and patience.
Bleil's Banter 