Okay, so technically this is post 102, but there was an announcement here and there, so I’m building in a little wiggle room.
April 18th, 2017 was post number 1. “Everything starts somewhere”. And it did, though posts began haltingly at first. For the next six months I posted just 15 times – a combination of some pub reviews I’d written previously, a trip report for my Lassen/Yosemite trip last year, and a few odds and ends.
Then came October.
I just want to say, I absolutely loved doing “31 Ghosts” last year. If you don’t remember what I’m talking about, I committed to writing a ghost story for each day of the greatest month of the year, October. And I did it! That I did, right there, that’s one strong reason for loving the project so much. But I’ve gone back and read some of the stories and, you know what? They’re a lot of fun! I’m generally my worst critic, but I’m proud of a lot of the things I wrote. Some of my favorites? If I had to pick a favorite it’s probably a tie between “Day 5: Ghost In The Machine. LOL.” and “Day 12: Hell Hath No Fury…” Fern would be mad if I didn’t mention her absolute favorite, “Day 3: The Ghost You Know”. I am planning on doing something to celebrate the most wonderful month of the year for 2018, I just haven’t decided whether we’re going to have 31 more ghosts, or… something else. We’ll see…
After October… posts dropped off again for a while. I’ll chalk it up to “creative burnout” after October. But other than Thanksgiving posts and a post here and there, it was quiet until the January “2018 Resolutions” post where I set a posting schedule – a schedule I’ve largely kept to, which has brought us to this point – 100 posts!
If you’re wondering why I’m breaking my arm patting myself on the back here for racking up an ultimately arbitrary number of posts on a site so far in the backwoods of the internet that even Google Spiders don’t spin webs, well, you bring up a good point. By virtue of reading this, you’re part of a particularly exclusive club that reads these posts (believe me, I’ve got the Google Analytics to prove it!). Last week, I published the Selfie entitled, “Up In The Night,” because, well, I’d fallen off my posting schedule, I hadn’t written a story for a few weeks, things just felt pretty rotten and disjointed. Oh, and I published that late – last Thursday!
But here’s something that I didn’t write in that piece: I woke up the next morning, Friday, and I felt… lighter. I had a spark again. That wasn’t much of a post, but it was a post. And, you know when your phone dies and you have to bum someone’s charger just for five minutes of juice? And they’re taking their charger back right after your screen came back on showing you’ve got 5% battery life? And instead of saying, “I’ve only got 5% battery life!!” you say, “Thank god, I’ve got 5% battery life”? Maybe that’s a little too specific. Okay, this isn’t a “glass is half full” vs “glass is half empty” scenario. No, there’s barely two tablespoons of water in that glass. But when you’re thirsty? That’s an awfully valuable gulp of water. That is something to work with. That was me Friday morning. I went back and I read some of the things I’ve written here – some of the 100 posts. Then I went back to my alpha-draft of my banshee novel, and it made me smile. And then I read my notes about January June, and I need to get back in touch with her world.
Friday was just another Friday. But I felt great again. It was Friday, too, that I noticed that that “Up In The Night” post… was actually the 100th post. Fitting. Fitting.
Let’s see what it looks like to hit 200 posts. 300? 500? I promise you I’ll do my best to not bore you (and if I do, please drop me a line and tell me so!). A little over a year ago, I wrote that first blog post on Think Dude Think as “a tentative step forward, a statement that this is officially further along than it was before, if ever so slightly.”
And so, here we go again! As I wrote then, “May there be more steps forward. May these posts move me forward. I hope you (and I!) enjoy the journey!”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
