You Getta da Gold Star

I’ve been trying this and it feels really pretty good.

Probably, this is THE break-through gimmick.

I was desperately seeking a way, for when my substack stats flat-lined or sunk, to get some buoying, water-wing perspective.

If you are all grown up, stop reading.

So I was desperate and I was in a store. I saw a young mother with her two little girls and a baby, and what was mom buying? but stars, a whole package of stick-on, shiny-foil stars. Gold ones. Silver. Other colors. Personally, when I was the age of her kids, I never got any gold stars, but I wanted one, bad.

Now, as a writer, I am told to, “Celebrate every one of your successes.” And I do, but my fleeting successes just disappear into the calendar fast as next garbage day. REAL easy to forget your high-spots ever happened, right?

So let’s say I find myself thirsting for a success, weeks lost out into a Sahara of writing my brains out. I sweat-out each syntax dune anyhow. I stumble and tumble down the sun-blasted other side. And regularly, I’m posting-away on substack or my website and not getting hits or views, and I’ve fallen into whiskey and I’m lying there at the bottom of the dune. This is the problem some of us know.

So I watched that little mother walk away with her kids and her stars, then I bought my own.

I have a big, paper planning calendar. My stars are populating it. I get a gold one for a new subscriber, a silver for a follower. The other colors are for things like hits, views, likes. Now, I can look back over the previous few months and see golden surges and deserts coming and going and my paper Christmas tree calendar telegraphs about the desolate stretches that, “This, too, shall pass.”