In any case, the scripts are all 500-1000 words, with most of them hovering toward the lower end of that range. I wrote the first handful separately, but I’ve kept one word file of Before Breakfast episodes for all the fully edited scripts from then on. The running word count on that file recently crossed 600,000 words.

This is an interesting number. It is roughly the number of words in War and Peace. It is not quite as long as the King James Bible (which clocks in at a bit under 800,000 words) but it is a lot of words nonetheless.

One of the items on my current List of 100 Dreams is to write an epic novel. On some level this is a daunting goal. But I have apparently recorded something equivalent in length over the last three years. It’s just that instead of a sweeping multi-generational character saga, it comes in the form of bite-sized productivity advice.

There are lots of ways to view this realization, but one positive approach is to realize that if I do want to write that epic novel, I could use a similar method. Just write 500-600 words every weekday for three years. Or for two years (I don’t need to actually hit 600,000 words!). Producing scripts has not been onerous. I can often write or edit 2-3 during my 12-year-old’s 1-hour fencing class. Fiction is harder, for sure. The organizational work will be a lot more intense. But the process is still all habit, execution, and patience. Just like anything else. Time passes. Words add up. The question is what they add up to.

(In case anyone is wondering, blog posts also add up. WordPress says I’ve published 2750 posts over the years. If each clocked in at 300 words on average, and my guess is the average is higher, that’s over 800,000 words right there…)

It is now December 27th, which is 361 days later. And sure enough, I am finished.

I suppose this seems straightforward enough, but any long journey can seem overwhelming. Not so much at the beginning. We all know the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and yet you have lots of energy and enthusiasm for that first step. It’s the steps at miles 46, and 75, and 126, and so forth, that seem harder.

But when there is a plan, and the plan is straightforward, and you stick with the plan, then eventually you will finish. Reading one 3-4 page chapter per day was always doable. This pace allowed me to get to know and care about the characters in this sweeping saga of Russia during the Napoleonic wars. There is a reason War and Peace is considered one of the world’s best novels.

Now I will take a few days off, and then start my next reading project on January 1st! I’m looking at reading all the works of Shakespeare. The path isn’t quite as straightforward (Shakespeare didn’t divide his work into 361 bite-sized pieces…) but I have a calendar that involves reading about the same amount, roughly 3 pages in the collection per day.

So here’s hoping that in late December of next year I’ll be finished with that. Life is, in many ways, unknowable. But there’s a reasonable chance that 2022 will happen, and that 2022 will have 365 days, and that I will be around for them, and capable of reading a little bit here and there. Since those things are likely to happen, I could end the year not having read all the works of Shakespeare, or I could end the year having done so. I’d like to aim for the latter.

Anyway (potential spoiler alerts here if you haven’t read it), Natasha is now in a blissful family-growing state. Humorously, Tolstoy deems her a bit of a supermom because…she is nursing her babies herself. Well, three of the four of them. This cracks me up given modern breastfeeding narratives. Everyone is shocked by the Countess’s decision not to use a wet nurse after baby #1. I guess breast was best, just not your own breasts.

Since my little guy turns 2 before the end of the year, it looks like I will wind up nursing for the full WHO-recommended two years. I have never gone this long before. My other children all lost interest somewhere between 12-18 months. He is not losing interest. As a toddler, and a vocal one, he has lots of dictatorial opinions about when he wants “Mommy milk” vs. “Baba milk.” He will stop and tell me “other side” when he wishes to be switched over. He made his big brother get off a certain chair this morning because he refused to be fed anywhere other than that chair.

His second birthday is just one event occurring over the next six weeks, which are just going to be…full. Christmas is coming. I’ve bought way too much that will need to be wrapped and moved. Speaking of which…we are moving! It’s looking like the first week of January. I’m trying not to think about this too much — all the logistics of moving one house to another. We’re hiring movers but it will take them two days to pack and another day or two to cart everything over. I’m thinking I will just move the family into the new house on day one of that project, and take air mattresses/sleeping bags and suitcases. That way we won’t be frantically trying to protect certain things from getting packed up because we still need them. If anyone has done a local move and has tips I welcome them.

The manuscript of Tranquility by Tuesday is back in my lap. Those edits need to be turned around by the end of January. I’m always looking for a few more stories, so if you followed any of the rules (in the project or not in the project) and have a good story of transformation you’d be willing to share, let me know! As always, lvanderkam at yahoo dot com.

I’ll be running a time-tracking challenge the second week of January (though during the move would be pretty funny — sharing those logs with the world!). If you’ve been looking for a good time to track your time, January 10-16 will have the built-in accountability of other folks doing it too.

Last night I went to my eldest child’s choir concert. I skipped my own choir practice to do this, but it seemed like the right choice — I am happy to cheer on my kid as he develops a love of something I love too. It was really good! He’s in his high school’s main chorus and then he auditioned for (and joined) their select ensemble. I posted a quick clip from their a cappella version of Linus & Lucy over at Instagram (@lvanderkam). The 10-year-old tagged along with my husband and me and she enjoyed seeing the jazz band play a few pieces too. She just picked up the trumpet this fall and has made very quick progress. It is not an easy instrument to start but after two months she can recognizably play the melody of Jingle Bells.

Not too much else to report. I’m going to a Christmas party this weekend (I’m getting to be a pro at taking the rapid at-home Covid tests that some hosts ask for). I’ll watch a livestream of a Christmas concert. I put sending my Christmas cards on my to-do list but we shall see….

On the plus side, we got our family photos back from Yana and they turned out well! I’m posting some over on Instagram (@lvanderkam). As predicted, wrangling the children was stressful but also as predicted, I’m really happy to have the pictures. Now we need to make the Christmas card!

I started holiday shopping in earnest this week. Some children are easier to shop for than others. I am really struggling with what to get the 12-year-old. He has promised to think about it and help me out. I should note that he has about $60 in birthday gift card money that he has yet to spend. Contentment is good but this does make gift giving challenging! I welcome ideas on what anyone buys pre-teen boys.

Also in financial news: We set the 10-year-old up with a bank account. Our family policy is to get the kids an account at age 10 so they can start learning about saving and investing. This has been fun to watch. The 14-year-old bought Disney stock on the dip of the pandemic when the theme parks were closed. He was bullish on them coming back and has been rewarded for that bet. I should note that in general we are index-fund-oriented investors who don’t try to time the market, but that is a lot less interesting for kids starting out.

I’ve been pondering what to choose as my 2022 year-long read. I have really enjoyed reading through War and Peace at the pace of one chapter a day during 2021. Right now I’m having to restrain myself from just finishing the darn thing (only about 150 pages to go). After some thought, I’m pretty sure that I will spend 2022 reading through all the works of Shakespeare. I found a reading plan that assigns the plays and poems and sonnets to appropriate times of the year (we start with Twelfth Night, of course, for early January!) and I have a copy of the collected works, so I think that should work well. Humorously, the front of the book notes that it was “purchased at Stratford on Avon, England,” by my husband, during the summer of 1988, back when he was bumming around Europe as a student.

And speaking of books — though not quite so classic…the Kindle version of 168 Hours is on sale for $1.99 today over at Amazon. If you haven’t read my first time management book and were thinking about doing so, today would be a good day to get a copy!

Photo: I think of this as the album cover image. There are some with our faces over on Instagram (@lvanderkam). Photo credit Yana Shellman.