"Mathy Math, Math-Math."  That's how one of my friends hears any discussion of numbers: "Mathy-mathetty-math-math."

But even the most innumerate of us have landmark numbers.  These are the numbers that maybe we learned to count by (5-10-15-20, for instance) or numbers that just feel less challenging to keep in mind (100 vs 97, or a dozen vs 13).

I'm approaching a landmark number as an author—a fact that is truly of interest to nobody but me. Has that yet stopped me from writing about anything? No.
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During my feverish rush last year to get current in my understanding of modern publishing, I gathered some depressing facts. About half of the US population does't read even a single book a year. Not a surprise, but oh! poor creatures!

Also, most books will sell less than 300 copies in the US (1000 copies factoring in all formats across the world). Not just in the first year, btw, but ever.  So if, let's say, you just so happened to be pouring your life-force into the creation of a book, this base truth is helpful for framing one's expectations.

Joyfully for me, I have at least 300 friends kind enough to buy my book. I am grateful for each one. It's a deep thrill every time someone tells me they have read it.

Which brings us to the wonderful-to-me landmark number: 1000.  On Goodreads.com, a website helps 150 million readers track and rate books, She Taught Me Everything is inching closer and closer to the 1000 mark.  

​Meaning that nearly 1000 readers on that site—mostly strangers! people who love to read and who judge by covers!—have either already read or plan to read the book. 
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They might be getting it from the library (ooh! If you use the library, consider requesting STME), or from a bookstore, iTunes or Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Amazon...

But 1000. Whatever expectations I had six months ago, this number feels a lot bigger than 999. ​

As soon as someone admits to me that they want to write, I point out that there one single action that writers do, and which nobody else does: they write.

You want to write? Write! Like everybody offering unsolicited advice, I'm pretty awesome at suggesting solutions.  

​As for following my own recommendation?

Erm.

​If my house is clean, and there's a complicated meal in the oven, and I have reorganized the books or weeded all the gardens, let's just say as a writer, there's room for improvement.

Since I'm working mostly for myself (and you, dear readers) these days, I go easy on my work shortcomings.  

​Distractions are merely side-quests. 

In the novel that I'm trying to finish right now, (or is it a novella? It's a lot shorter than She Taught Me Everything but okay) one of the characters spins wool and linen. The story's set in a pre-Industrial world where there's magic, but she's often to be found spinning away.

Do I know how to spin wool or linen? Do I need to know? Pffft! I make up shi—ooh! There's a CLASS!

Just so happens I bought a plastic sack including some wool and a spindle last year at the thrift store. One human's trash is another person's back-up hobby supplies.

Add in a pleasant day spent in the company of an enthusiastic teacher (thanks Julia at the Thousand Islands Arts Center!) I now, as have our ancestors for thousands of years, can use a drop-spindle to make wool yarn. 

The process of making fiber behave is not unsimilar to making twine from nettles or willow. Missed that craze? here's my link: http://www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/paleo-crafts

Spinning can be pretty lo-tech: a hank of wool, a stick, and within moments, you create a fluffy bit of innovation. Kind of like magic, really.

Or like writing...