My son Travis and I gathered the sea glass collected over the years–mostly by me, a little bit by friends–since moving to a cottage a few long blocks from the beach, and in unison said, “Whoa!” There was a lot there. Brown glass, green glass, white and sea foam, and a few stray shades, anomalies. The most I bring home from a walk are a few pieces at a time, and not every day. Maybe an average of once a week. And sometimes weeks will go by, even months, without looking for it, or finding any.

I was thinking how the sea glass adding up is so like writing. It’s not uncommon for people who want to be writers, or who feel they have a book in them, to dream of having that year or month or even two week uninterrupted span when they have nothing else to do but write, and when that time comes, they will get the book written, or the short stories or essays.

What works better for me and for most successful–or productive writers, for who can truly say what success is?–is chipping away at projects. And I was reminded of collecting sea glass, and how the sea glass you see here was collected over the years–about 20. You’d never find this much in a couple of weeks, or months, no matter how you tried. This is why you can go on eBay and buy bags of “sea glass style” pieces (not truly sea glass but glass tossed in a rock tumbler to resemble sea glass): because it’s ain’t easy to find it. The conditions have to be right; the tide has to be low.

I look at our containers of sea glass and I remember. This is how words pile up: over time, little by little, bit by bit.

Photo credit: Travis Barrett