Yesterday was my 100th post.  Amazing how fast that came around!

Just think  – if I’d been writing flash fiction pieces every day instead of blog entries I’d have already written 100 pieces.  Or if I’d been plugging away on a novel it would probably be pretty close to a good length first draft.  (I try to keep each post under 1,000 words and I think most fall between 500 and 1,000 somewhere.)

Of course, I’ve discussed before that I blog while I’m killing time and can’t do my fiction writing.  (Maybe someday I’ll get to the point where I can be interrupted mid-scene and not mind it, but for now I need a half hour or hour to write when I know my boss, grandma, and mom won’t call.)  So, the time used on this blog isn’t interchangeable with fiction writing time.

And, even though this blog isn’t novel writing, it does have its benefits.

Writing these posts forces me to think through what I’ve read elsewhere.  It’s one thing to read a blog post written by a published author.  It’s another to turn around and try to explain why that post mattered to me or what it meant.

More than once, I’ve started a blog post thinking I was going to say one thing and found myself saying something else quite different instead.  Having to explain something really does help you learn it.  (Except for those things I still don’t “get” like show vs. tell.  Damn it.  But at least it made me realize I don’t get it…)

And, hopefully, this will one day be a detailed journey of one writer’s path to publishing success.  I think it’s easy to get somewhere and forget how hard it was to get there.  How many of us really remember that first day of school?  Or that first math test?  Once you’ve passed on to that next level of achievement you forget what it was like starting out.

So, for good or ill, no matter how much it makes me cringe some day down the road, I hope this blog will be a record of my personal exploration of writing concepts and the publishing world.

Here’s to the next 100 posts!

(And wish me luck – my house goes on the market tomorrow.  And, if it sells, then I’m going to be a “homeless” vagabond for the first time…ever?  Scary stuff!  But exciting, too.)