Last week I posted my 300^th blog post.  And true to form, missed out on commemorating the occasion.

This is something of a trend for me when it comes to my writing.  I’m constantly overlooking my memorable achievements.

(What few memorable achievements I have as an unpublished, unconnected writer.)

I celebrate my writing birthday—the anniversary of when I first assumed a professional attitude toward my writing in pursuit of publication—alternately on February 10 and February 12 because I can never remember the designated date.

When I remember to mark the day at all.

For almost four years, I’ve led a successful writers’ social meetup group, and consistently forget to mark the anniversary of the group’s inception.

In the past, I’ve commemorated my February 20 blogging birthday, once in 2013 and three years later in 2016.  I celebrate this milestone so infrequently, I don’t even know off the top of my head how long I’ve been blogging.

(A/N: I did the math and it’s been six years.)

While writing the second draft of my WIP (a complete rewrite) back in 2016, I was supposed to reward my progress at the end of chapters 7, 15, 21, and 31.  Yet I barely—barely; only through the strong and regular insistence of a friend—managed to honour my chapter 15 accomplishment.

I didn’t even make note of my 50^th, 100^th, or 200^th blog posts.  For the anniversary of my 300^th post on June 11, 2018, I was ostensibly prepared.  I had the event marked on my calendar.  But still I couldn’t get my shit together.

Dedicated neglect

I didn’t forget about my 300^th post.  But I did want to write something special—be it about my writing progress or about blogging in general.  About why I started blogging, why I’m still doing it six years later when the heyday is over and blogging is purportedly “dead”, and what I’ve learned from this lengthy foray into public self-expression.

But there is nothing special about being deep in revisions, my writing progress at present.  I’m currently powering—and pantsing—my way through a rewrite of the first half of my WIP’s second act.

This basically amounts to a ton more writing than when I outlined—basically the definition of trial and error … and more trials, and more errors, and fervent prayer to whatever writing gods are listening that it all comes together in the end.

But this pantsing business is far too outlandish an experience for me to not become the subject of its own future post.

Meanwhile, I started this blog unenthusiastically back in 2012 at the insistence of my cousin Sam*, who claimed that as a writer I needed a web presence in support of my publishing aspirations.

I’ve continued blogging all these years despite my relative obscurity because I eventually found a posting schedule that worked for me.  So too did my writing finally progress into milestones and stages besides just unremitting (read: boring) drafting.

That will teach me to write the first draft of an entire trilogy upfront rather than revising Book 1 when I first finished it.)

Surprisingly**, I’ve come to really love blogging.  I don’t really want to bore my friends and family with the minutiae of my writing life, so blogging gives me a chance to reflect on these things, and occasionally engage with others who are in the same situation.

My blog is essentially a writing journal that I keep publically.  This way, when I become famous (right; but maybe…), people can look back upon my journey, and also learn more about me should they so wish.

As for what I’ve learned from six years of blogging, my biggest lesson, tangentially, has been time management.

For after first committing to post to my blog once a week consistently, I then had to make time to write, polish, find images for, and post the posts.

To accommodate my blog (my WIP as well), I’ve had to move tasks around in my schedule like Tetris blocks, seeking the smoothest sequence of all my various tasks, both the mandatory and the self-imposed.

It’s a constant process, for I’m endlessly on guard for more writing time that I can squeeze from my day, and usually able to find it if I keep an open mind and commit to at least trying to do more with less (I’m far more efficient with 15 minutes today than I was 10 years ago).

I’m so focused on maintaining my writing life, I consistently neglect to commemorate it.

I need to do better.

But for now, in my usual inconsequential fashion, I celebrate my 300^th post on A Frame Around Infinity—with every intention to keep going, and actually mark many more milestones to come.

~

* Sam is not my real cousin.

** I’m not even sure why my love of blogging surprises me, or why I was so resistant to it at the start.  I’m a writer and blogging is a form of writing.  Why would I not love it?  Writers gonna write!

(Image source #1 and #2)