By my math, and I’m fairly decent at most math (plus this math is super simple), today’s post marks the 100th post since I started doing daily posts! You can’t see it here since I didn’t think to record myself doing it until I started writing this post, but I took a moment to celebrate by blowing a kazoo and setting off a couple of those “Party Popper” things people buy for New Year’s Eve. This is 100 posts down! only 295 more to go! November 1st, 2017 to November 30th, 2018.  I’ve made it through three months, and they were the hardest months! I am least productive during December and January on account of the holidays and the start of my yearly battle with worsening depression due to little sunlight, the cold, and winter in the northern Midwest of the US. After the end of February, everything will be so easy by comparison! Even February is easier than January was.

First off, I’d like to thank myself for not letting me get away with any bullshit excuses or stupid “one day off won’t hurt” crap. I’d also like to thank two of my friends–who’d probably rather be go unnamed–for reading stuff before I posted it. I’d like to thank my French friend for reading my blog and being easily identifiable when reviewing my view stats. I’d like to thank everyone who shared my blog and then everyone who read it because seeing that people are reading my blog is a huge encouragement.

This has been a trial at times, to make sure to post everyday, but it has been very rewarding. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so productive as I have these last few months. Nor have I ever felt quite so hopeful when thinking about all of the stuff I still want to do. This project, a year of daily posts, has had a huge impact on my self-confidence and belongs right up there with one of the biggest moments of my life as a writer. Receiving an award in college was the moment that made me realize that I could be good at this if I really worked at it (and that other people felt the same) and daily blog posts has made me realize that I can work hard enough to achieve my writing goals. While I’ve still got another 295 blog posts to go before I’ve really achieved my goal, I can definitely say that it has moved from “Shoot for the moon! Might as well go down swinging!” to “This is totally doable.” in terms of my own internal evaluation.

I know I’m a lot better at pursuing an extreme goal with no room for compromise than doing any kind of half-measure or slower-paced thing. Cutting myself slack is an easy way to get me to stop working on a goal or a project, which probably isn’t the best character trait to have. Being able to take it easy for a bit should be what I work on next, really. Ha! As if.

For my next trick, I’m going to start working on a story idea I had set aside last fall, while getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I’m going to write 7 posts a week, post every day, work on this other story every day, and maybe I’ll even find some time somewhere in there to sleep! That’s the dream. Thanks for reading and I hope you’re enjoying what I’m posting!