This has been a week of cumulative changes.

Yesterday, I submitted the Anthology of Odd to be published on Amazon through the self-publishing side of Kindle. In the end, something that had so often felt out of reach was astonishingly simple.

We can have a habit of safeguarding success. In the fine print of our aspirations, we deny ourselves victories by insisting that they have to be achieved in hyper-specific ways. I had always wanted to publish my work, but it was easier to hide behind the unknown and extra effort it would take to learn about it that I procrastinated by writing other stories.

Funny how that model of procrastination led me to this. In the last couple of months, as I’ve reintegrated into life in Portland and the US, I’ve felt keenly aware of the lack of creative output. The last couple of years have seen me write and post stories on this website at what had previously been an unimaginable rate. Certainly, it was quantity over quality, but it’s through quantity that you give yourself the ability to write quality.

I’ve had serious ambitions tied to writing for over twelve years. And it’s been through the process of writing and relaxing into my own identity that I’ve begun to discover any sort of success from it.

I probably have something close to forty unfinished journals lying around. Not counting the fifty-something journals, endless word documents, notes on my phone, and any other place I could scribble stories and lines down.

In these past couple of months, I’ve felt like I’ve arrived “at the base of the Mesa,” as Judy Blunt said to me after I graduated from UM. At that point, I felt like I was at the start of learning. Now? I feel like I’m still at the beginning, but now the learning concerns concentrated output.

I hope to end November with two anthologies available on Amazon in eBook and paperback format. I’ve already reached the point with this website where I can’t find all the stories I’ve written as I sift through the 365, Gallimaufry, and Salmagundi. That’s not counting the 100-day challenge or any stories hiding in the draft sections throughout the website.

G.K. Chesterston once said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly first.”

I keep that in mind as I rework what a dream means. Was the goal just to become published? Because I could stop now if that were it. But it hasn’t been about the outcome. It’s been about the process this whole time.

With all the journals, notes, scribbles, and voice memos, it’s always been about the process, even when I didn’t share my stories with anyone else.

If you’ve been reading through my website for a while now or whether you’ve just started, I hope you allow yourself the same low entry into passion in your own life because life is dictated by the problems we face. So, we might as well make them good ones.