Happy Birthday, Blog!

My first post about my sincere love of arugula sat in the hopper (my drafts) for months. I had chosen a name and a design for my blog but let it sit while I figured out if that’s what I wanted to do, then mustered the courage to start, to put myself out there and share my writing.

I needed to get in the practice of writing daily, and I thought blogging might be a good experience. If I started a blog it would be a place to get rid of the autobiographical/non-fiction stuff in which I have seen first time authors get bogged down—thinly disguising their lives as fiction. I was over my initial distaste for blogs as being narcissistic. Everyone was doing it, it seemed, including my friend Amy, and I knew of bloggers who were actually discovered, now making their livings writing—like Molly Wizenberg, aka Orangette, blogger turned contributor to Bon Appetit and now author of A Homemade Life.

Eventually I got inspired to write about pork products and flowers and grammar and patent leather shoes and with a few pieces written, I thought maybe I had enough to share, maybe it was time to click publish and let people know that I had done so.

I crafted an email and selected some recipients from my email address book, those who have been supportive of me as a writer, and those who might be interested in reading my musings (not necessarily the same people). And October 7 I did it, I clicked publish and included a link to my blog in that email.

There were months I didn’t write much, and months I decided to share my blogging life with more people—again, not necessarily one and the same. The last few months have been writing much more regularly, even as I get to that novel that is yet to be written start to finish. But I have been at it a year, with a regular group of readers as far as I can tell. I haven’t been discovered yet, but I haven’t given up hope.

I thank you for reading and for staying with me through this first year!