100 Blogs
And a big announcement...
Welcome to Wonderings & Wanderings by Will Reynoir. If you want to get these wonderings from this struggling blogger straight to your inbox, subscribe for free and join the 50 other people following along!
Hey everyone! I hope y’all are having a superb, immaculate, and sensational week so far. It’s only been one week into real football and holy cow football is so back. Although there were no major games I planned to watch this weekend, we already have our first big upset of the season as #10 Flordia State who was barely kicked out of the college football playoffs last year loses to conference rival Georgia Tech. Not only was the upset a big one, but they also took a page out of the NFL’s book and went overseas to Dublin, Ireland for this game.
I unfortunately wasn’t able to watch it though as I was too busy getting preppy and playing croquet in Central Park as the Executive Chairman of the Central Park Croquet Club (CPCC). Regardless, I cannot contain my excitement for football to be back at this point as evidenced by my viewing of the NFL Top 100 players videos for two hours straight on a Saturday night (link to the whole list here). If you’re someone who isn’t a huge football fan but is looking to become one (if you’re reading this blog I probably just assume you are), feel free to reach out to me on where to start.
Anyway, enough football talk, I want to start diving into this week’s blog where I do a little introspection and make a small announcement for those of you who actively follow this blog (not many, but much appreciation). So…without further ado…let’s go!
100 Blogs
As I was putting the finishing touches on last week’s blog (shameless shill), I went to find something from a previous blog on Substack and noticed something that honestly blew my mind: I had surpassed 100 blogs written!
Now…I had one blog with just a simple introduction, and another announcing that I was moving my writing from Medium to Substack (more shameless shills), so I consider last week’s post my 100th blog. However, looking back, I’m honestly shocked that I have come this far in my writing journey. Here are just a few stats I was able to compile (some more painstaking than others) since starting my blog:
7,502 views (only on Substack, Medium isn’t easy to find your stats)
50 subscribers from 14 states & six countries (US, UK, Australia, Ecuador, Iceland, & Vietnam)
203,332 total words written
Comparable to Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (199k) by J.K. Rowling and Dune (206k) by Frank Herbert (call me the Lisan Al Gaib)
Averages out to 2k words per blog, which is approximately the same as an eight-page paper in school (the ones we used to always dread)
970 reading minutes
You can binge-watch Phase 1 or Phase 2 of the MCU (with time to spare), the original six Star Wars films (before Disney made the trilogy we don’t talk about), or all the Harry Potter movies besides the Deathly Hallows films
Now I know some of you binge-watching professionals are probably thinking “That’s nothing…I’ve already done the whole Harry Potter movie marathon in one day.” To that, I say fair point. However, seeing the quantitative result of what two years of dedicating 5-10 hours per week to writing blogs gets you genuinely blows my mind and puts into perspective how far I’ve come along. I remember when I was in school and dreaded having an entire month to write an eight-page paper whereas now I am doing that every single week. Furthermore, I would have never thought that I’d be talking about so many different topics including crypto, sports, government & politics, philosophy, psychology, and whatever else I randomly had an interest in.
While looking at these stats honestly shocks me (in a good way), re-reading the introduction post I wrote to begin my writing journey and comparing it to where I am now really brings back some memories. When I started writing, I was mainly doing it to become a better writer after one of my mentors told me it was one of the four main skills to help create a successful career (wrote an entire blog about these skills). However, if I had to be honest, the main driver at the time was to try and get a job in an industry (crypto) where I had no meaningful experience or proof of work, so I resorted to writing for that proof. While this end goal was eventually achieved (my former boss at NEAR even told me my writing helped get me hired), I remember thinking to myself about whether or not I should continue writing or just throw it away as I attained what I was searching for. Boy, am I glad I didn’t choose the latter, as this has now become one of my favorite habits that I look forward to diving into every single week.
However, by far and away the biggest surprise I have from writing during these past two years (and some change) are the reactions I’ve received from people close to me and a little less so. Now, to be certain, I stated from the get-go that I am not writing to grow some large following that I can make money from, or gain some sort of recognition from my peers. Regardless, one of the best feelings I get is when someone I know says they’ve read one of my pieces. I’ve had countless encounters with people I haven’t seen or heard from in years come up to me and telling me how much they enjoy reading some of my words ranging from former classmates I’d spoken to less than 10 times, teachers and school administrators, former work colleagues, and more. These types of interactions warmed my heart more than I ever expected, and if you are one of these people, thank you very much for expressing this to me.
All this reflection has been nice, and I’ve had an absolute kick rereading my introductory blog as well as a few others as I’ve gone back and tried to find how many words and reading hours these 102 blogs took up. Although I am nowhere near the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell says require mastery of any craft, I can assure you that my writing has increased quite substantially since then. With this much-improved writing, I want to continue challenging myself in this domain and start diving into an idea I conjured up a little less than a year ago.
Announcement…
While sitting in an oversized lawn chair in the Presidio of San Francisco enjoying the breeze and sunset of the bay before going to a networking event I had a random idea hit me. It was one of those ideas where I just had to stop whatever I was doing (which was not much besides looking at the bay) and just write down all of my thoughts on a piece of paper before they slipped into the nothingness of my mind. Thus, I began jotting down everything I could think of and came up with this:
That’s right, I came up with the idea of writing a book! The premise of the book is to share advice to people in their 20s with the backdrop of the story being my journey around the US last year. Each chapter will take place in one of the 12 cities I traveled to and provide a lesson that I learned while living in that city for an entire month. I learned a bunch of life lessons while being on the road last year so I have a pretty solid list of some that I might include, but I’ll wait to share those at a later time.
Now, if I’m being fully self-aware, it’s kind of hypocritical for someone who is still in their 20s to be advising people in this age demographic. I mean, one of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve learned is to take every piece of advice with a grain of salt, including the ones that I give. However, similar to my reasoning as to why I got into blogging in the first place, it will provide me with a writing challenge that I can learn and grow from through the invaluable experience of committing hours and hours with no distractions to a singular project.
If I am going to be perfectly honest, I was planning on putting pen to paper on this much earlier in the year, but with my move to NYC, getting a full-time offer at Coinbase on a job where I’ve had to learn a lot on the fly, and more travel than I previously predicted, I have been putting this on the back burner. Furthermore, my weekly commitment to writing blogs has also taken much of my free time (in a good way to be clear). Thus, after getting to that 100th blog (or 102, whatever suits your fancy), I thought that this could be a good moment to make a decision I’ve been thinking of for a while:
For the time being, I will be pausing my weekly blog to dedicate more free time to writing a book that I’ve tentatively titled “Do Things You Can Talk About At Cocktail Parties.”
To the 50 of y’all who are subscribed and consistently read this blog every week (which I appreciate from the bottom of my heart), this means that you will get a break from reading these 2k+ word blogs on a seemingly random topic every week. However, this doesn’t mean I am gone forever. If there is a topic that I feel very strongly about, I may still pop on and write a quick piece (such as my belief that this upcoming election is less about Democrats vs. Republicans and more about Establishment vs. Anti-Establishment). Additionally, once I am done writing this book, I plan on resuming this blog every week, so you can think of this as just an extended break rather than a termination.
For anyone who has any questions about my blog or book, is interested in learning more, or wondering what other newsletters/blogs to subscribe to since you now have a little more free time on your hands every week, please reach out and I would be more than happy to answer any questions, comments, or concerns. Well…I don’t really know how to end this blog cause it’s not like most blogs. So, as Michael Scott would say, I’ll see everyone back in your inbox next week:
Click the links below, or reach out to me here:
Email: wreynoir@gmail.com
Congratulations!!
Can't wait for your book to come out!
All the best. Love, Mrs. Saxena