Hocus Focus 1200

Well, how about that? I’m on track, more or less, for accomplishing what I said I would accomplish when my daily blogging streak reached three years.

That was just before my 1,100th consecutive post, and today is No. 1,200, so today is one of those assessment moments where we see how far we’ve come in the last 100 days. 

Back on Aug. 1, I said I have narrowed my focus to only three projects for the rest of the year — finishing my novel Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus, finishing an as-yet-unannounced novelette, and a third project that I had run a couple of teasers for.

Jeep is still on track to have at least a first draft completed by the end of the year. ’Nuff said there.

The novelette, of course, is Ebenezer, which is indeed now finished and available for pre-order in advance of its Nov. 24 release. I’m still hoping to announce print editions and an audiobook but am less confident they will be ready on that date, for reasons out of my control. Still, the novelette is finished.

The unnamed third project was the revival of the Uncle Warren’s Attic podcast, which I launched with great-ish fanfare on Sept. 1, only to be met with indifference on an existential scale. I sent episodes 81 through 83 into the world on consecutive Fridays and dropped the weekly schedule when the statistics showed not a single ripple in the vast ocean of podcasts.

Thus, so far my narrowed focus has resulted in mixed success, but success none the less. On the scale of meeting the target, I have already finished two of the three projects and the biggest if the three is still doable. I have little or no control over whether the universe cares.

Have I learned a lesson about focusing on one or two or three projects instead of working on everything at once? Evil Genius Chronicles podcaster Dave Slusher once said you can tell if you’re passionate about something if you would keep doing it even if no one is paying attention. Clearly I have a passion for blogging every day, and thank you to the handful of you who do pay attention. The jury is now out on whether I have a passion for podcasting anymore, although I do have fun with it when I’m in the right mood. We’ll see where that goes — not weekly, of course, but maybe as an occasional lark.

So, for better or for worse, the streak continues — 1,200 days down, and who knows how many more to go.