In Today’s Journal
* Merry Christmas
* The Numbers
Merry Christmas
Welp, whether the novel wrapped yesterday or will wrap this fine early Christmas morning or not, I’ll be taking today off after I post this and the sun comes up. (grin)
I’ll be back in your inbox at least three more times before the new year: once to post Monday’s challenges report, once to post an article on Setting Goals, and once with an end of the year wrap up.
At this point, I was gonna offer up my buddy Nick Spalding to write a holiday wish for you, but I don’t want to short anybody.
Besides, c’mon. Everybody out there knows Nick Spalding and Joseph “Joey Bones” Salerno and Stern Talbot and Wes Crowley and Jonah Peach and Charlie Task and all those souls on the generation ship The Ark and all 30 or so Blackwell Ops operatives (and others) are only me having a good time. So here you go:
I hope all of you enjoyed a happy Christmas Eve and will enjoy this Christmas Day even if you don’t personally ‘celebrate’ the holiday in your traditions.
I mean, what the hey. I enjoy pretty much every holiday that rolls around, if for no other reason than the fact that it makes someone somewhere happy, and as a general rule, happy people don’t wage war.
In my own personal tradition, I learned early on that every day is a holiday, every meal is a banquet, and every second an angry wasp isn’t zipping your way is a second to celebrate.
That’s true whether the meal is turkey or ham or tamales with all the fixings (maybe including kimchi) or C-Rats from an olive-drab can opened with a John Wayne (P-38) can opener. Well, or MREs these days.
If you enjoy any of those or any other meal (pizza and beer, anyone?)
—with your back against a sodden, rotting, fallen log in a drizzling jungle or
—on the sand under scorching 120+ degree desert heat or
—around a dinner table with family or friends or just across from each other
it’s just as much a banquet.
But then, I’m a lucky guy. How many people can say they enjoyed their first taste of fresh lobster on paper plates and fresh-made fruit punch from a paper cup under an ugly green tent canopy on a beach halfway around the world with sixty or eighty of their closest friends? (grin)
Good food, good company, and a full heart are never bad things.
If you’re drawing breath, you have something to be thankful for and something to celebrate.
After all, the only prerequisite for a holiday is that the sun rises at one end of it and sets at the other. Well, that and the desire to celebrate it.
And who doesn’t want to celebrate one more glorious day on this goofy little blue marble?
Talk with you again soon.
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 490
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 490
Writing of Blackwell Ops 53: Jack Striker | The Next Level
Day 1…… 2035 words. To date………… 2035
Day 2…… 2217 words. To date………… 4252
Day 3…… 3751 words. To date………… 8003
Day 4…… 2218 words. To date………… 10221
Day 5…… 2181 words. To date………… 12402
Day 6…… 1673 words. To date………… 14075
Day 7…… 1972 words. To date………… 16047
Day 8…… 2081 words. To date………… 18128
Day 9…… 2694 words. To date………… 20822
Day 10…. 2712 words. To date………… 23534
Day 11…. 1581 words. To date………… 25115
Day 12…. 1155 words. To date………… 26270
Day 13…. 1951 words. To date………… 28221
Day 14…. 4108 words. To date………… 32329
Fiction for December……………………… 32329
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 786976
Nonfiction for December.………………… 24910
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 290040
2025 consumable words………………… 1069447
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 122
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29