Hitting 300

If this was related to baseball I’d be considered as being “On Fire!” And if it was the end of a substantial career, I’d be considered for The Hall of Fame!

But since this is only my, personal world wide blog journal, designed to capture, hopefully, my personal rebranding from, “Dave the loader operator,” into “Dave the successful author,” the 300 mark is barely getting going.

But I feel like this is a good place to stop on the trail, break out a baloney sandwich, apple, and a Snickers, and wash it all down with a cold swig of water.

Just like on a beautiful fall day chasing grouse.

To set a spell. To look back down the trail, and review how far I’ve come, and then to turn my face and attention up the trail… to look at the map and decide on which way to head on out into the foreseeable future.

To celebrate being at this specific spot in time, and celebrating what’s been done up to this point, which is…

getting over the 300 mark in my weekly, davebosquez.com, blog articles.

(I’m not really on a trail, I’m sitting at the table eating M&M’s and drinking a Diet Mt Dew… but that’s not as pretty a picture as a beautiful fall day in the grouse woods;)

As a man, learning to stop and celebrate a private victory is kinda hard, from a mental and emotional standpoint, I guess because we’re men… we’re not suppose to celebrate much… just get it done and move on!

But I feel like it’s not “complete” if you don’t “acknowledge the accomplishment.”

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about handing out participation ribbons every time a guy does the dishes or anything like that… but a person, man or woman, needs some type of feedback to let them know they’re alive, and not invisible.

This particular article is my celebration of the 300 that came before it.

They may not stand the test of time as have the 300 who defended the Alamo, or the 300 who defended The Hot Gates… but for today, for me, I celebrate The 300.

I wish I could say, as Leonidas must have, “These are my best and bravest!”

But you and I both know that they are not.

They are only as good, or as brave, as I could be right now with my current skill set.

But as I read them back… I couldn’t be prouder.

Some make me laugh because I feel like I made a humorous comment, others are funny because of how simple my writing style was, or that I missed making a clear point by a long shot!

As I look back, down the trail I’ve come, I can still just make out Jack London, as a writer he is who I am trying to emulate. (Minus the Socialistic worldview)

And as I looked back to Jack I found an interesting tidbit. His first paid writing gig was when he won a writing contest his mom had him enter after he regaled her with some of his sailing and fishing adventures.

His prize… his first paid gig… what helped light the fire in his belly to pursue writing as a career was a whopping $25.00 dollar first place prize!

If you’ve been with me for a while you may have heard me mention what I earned for my first, accepted, magazine article… yep… $25.00 bucks!

I am right on track! hahaha!

He also published 50 books in his last 16 years… I’m up to 5.

He, and other professional writers share a common trait… they are prolific. They write, and wrote, a lot! On many different topics… along with their main line of work… whether that was authoring books, poems, long novels, plays, working for the newspapers and so on. They produced a lot of copy during their lives and careers.

As I celebrate my 300 I am also looking ahead… how can I get better, can I write well enough to convince others to buy an article from me, can I determine the flavor of my next book for my Emerging Man website and get started on it? Can I continue and be prolific, producing weekly content for the 3 sites I have up and running… davebosquez.com, theemergingman.com and definitedad.com?

Can I develop a specific niche, or specialty, to focus on? Do I need to?

The future always holds more questions than answers.

The one thing I do know about is that… my trail lunch is done, the sun is setting, and those grouse aren’t gonna just hop in the pot!

As I continue to progress as a writer I am becoming a true believer in “the journey being the way,” because each destination and goal you reach… is really only a new starting point.