a year in the life

I didn't even realize it, but a week ago Friday marked a year since I started this blog. I guess it's served it's purpose, and it's accomplished more than I'd ever expected. For one, I've made friends through the damn thing, while I've only lost one friend, which is a pretty good net gain (especially considering that the lost friend wasn't much of a friend to begin with, if she was gonna wind up bolting over something so petty).

I put up two posts on the first day -- one about a world-famous dog psychologist in JoCo, and another about an asshole I'd seen on The Amazing Race. I started the blog because I was sort of blocked. I was then three months into a year-long assignment to write the first draft of my book, and I was feeling overwhelmed. I thought the freedom of a blog would loosen me up, and it did. In fact, when I was in the final stretch on the book, and my mind was really clamping shut in fear and anxiety, I would tell myself, "This is just like a blog entry. Just write it out and don't worry about it." It worked.

The other cool thing is that I'm turning some of my earliest posts into a proposal for what I hope will be my second book. I just sent a not-quite-completed draft to Agent Lydia, so we're moving along, I suppose, thanks to the blog.

All in all, a pretty cool year. And now it's all frozen in cyberspace.