Last week I wrote about how it can sometimes be difficult to perceive progress in the moment, because progress, like a lot of other good things, tends to happen slowly over time, as opposed to bad things that tend to happen suddenly and are thus more likely to be attention-grabbing.
Well, there’s hardly a more relevant example of this for me right now than the subject of this week’s post. I’ve been writing this weekly blog for over a year and a half now. A few months after I started, I decided, on suggestion from family and friends, that it would be a good idea to compile some of the popular blog posts into a book. I took on this project a few months ago, I wrote a book proposal around the idea, pitched it to a few publishers, and I’m finally pleased to announce that my new book, Art Is The Way, will be available everywhere on December 1st.
When I started this blog, I never intended to turn it into a book. I wrote one blog post a week, spanning a few hundred to a few thousand words each. The words began to add up, week after week, and central themes began to emerge so that even without realising it, I had a collection of ideas, grouped under various sections. A few months, a publisher, two editors and a designer later, and we’ve ended up with a nearly 300-page, 70,000-word book.
If that doesn’t underscore the power of compounding and the manifestation of progress over time, then I don’t know what does. So, this is yet another reminder, a note to self, that today’s actions matter in the grand scheme of things, even if we might not be able to realise the benefits for days or months or years. In the meantime, you can pre-order Art Is The Way, and get it from all major bookstores from December 1st.
P.S.: My middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas is out everywhere now. It’ll make an excellent stocking filler or holiday present for the children in your life, or their parents. You can get it in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.