Cheap Milestones

Hey this our 200th post! Please wait while the balloons and confetti lightly fall to the earth and the sounds of the kazoos fade into the background of time. Wait. Wait. Wait. Not yet. Wait for it. OKAY. I could end the post here and make sort of a Euro-hipster-psuedo-intellectual statement about milestones but I won't. I am a fat, loud mouthed American and I have to say something. Okay. A number of writers have taken Ray Bradbury's formula to enth degree and I fear that as writers we are losing the trees in the woods. Some of the things Ray always said, and I paraphrase; if you get rejected send it back out; get a submission out every couple of days to achieve a publication a week, etc. Well life interferes. The last couple of months I have done a lot less writing because of busy work at work; family emergencies; a hurricane; a nor'easter, etc. And life should interfere. A writer told me recently that she was beside herself because she was 8.2 stories down this month and on Halloween she was pulling an allnighter to get back to level. Wow. Really. It's great to be published and its great to have stories out there to be published--- and leave finances out of this ---but can we all just look at our quality rather than our quantity? Are we really happy with the piece we just sent out because it is well written or a fine experimental piece that brings up satisfaction or are we just filling some arbitrary milestone, some statistic, some quota. Sure a well written piece of literature is the same as a well written piece of music and a proper mathmatical formula. Each possesses a symmetry and a cadence and a flow; there is a tightness and aire of correctness and certitude. Can we all strive for that rather than hack a chunk of our intellect off? Ray Bradbury could play in the ballpark of numbers--he had that talent--most o us don't and need to approach our game with more care.