After a year of pecking away at this thing I’ve learned to think of as a “writing life” I’ve found that I’ve kinda reached a critical mass of projects.

True. Part of me thought I would have created something worthy of publication by now, but rather that has not been the case. For example, I have a written 80% of a novel. I have penned about thirty scripts for yet-unrecorded podcast episodes. I have typed out a couple of completed short stories that need editing and the bones of at least a dozen more that need focus. My word processor files are now filled with so many personal essays on such a wide range of topics and in such a broad state of completion that I can barely keep track save for just to open one that looks interesting and polish, tweak, add, or prune.

And. It would be fair to say that I have typed a quarter of a million words in the last year. Sure, I’ve not but published a whole number percentage of those but they exist and they are not without value. Hardly.

In fact, as I stated, I’m at something of a critical mass. I have such a broad number of great little projects in progress that on any given day I can wake up and type a few hundred words here or few hundred words there and make progress on any one of those projects. Like, if I’m so inclined I can write another chapter in my novel, scope out a few more pages of that comic script I’ve been working on, or edit one of my essays for just a hint more of clarity.

None of this is wasted effort. It’s all incrementally building and growing and progressing.

It all just adds bit by bit, drip by drab, onto the whole of my collected efforts.

And while I may sometimes feel a little discouraged by the lack of publication-readiness of most of it, I am deeply encouraged that so much of it is slowly and steadily moving with momemtum towards that publish-ready state at some point in the future. Maybe even the near future.