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April 25, 2004
CHANGE COMES TO CURMUDGEONLAND
One of the more pleasant developments in my world over the last few months has been the way this blog has been received. I started this thing back in late July of last year primarily as a writing exercise to keep myself sharp. (I know how weird it sounds for a guy who writes for a living to say he needed an exercise to stay sharp... but trust me, years of business writing can -- and will -- take their toll on a writer's creativity; and I was legitimately afraid that I was losing my ability to write anything that a non-shareholder would care to read.)
Along the way, I discovered a few vehicles -- BlogWise, Blogorama, BlogCritics -- and exchanged links with a few friends (most notably Spin Doc, Tim, Marine's Girl, Pete, and JoFish). I've had the pleasure of making some new friends as new people have come 'round 'Mudgeonland, some of you caring enough (or being angered enough) to share comments on some of the posts. I suspect a lot of my hits are still just me refreshing or dropping in to see how many people have dropped by (I am a true hit-whore, I admit it, I watch the number), but be that as it may my hit count has still now cleared 15,000 -- more than 10,000 since Valentine's Day. Knowing that people I didn't know were actually bothering to read what I had to rant about just made me want to rant some more... and I have tried to write at least something every day as a result.
That daily writing -- as well as the very flattering comments that some of you have left -- has made me a more confident writer. And that confidence, combined with a number of developments in other corners of my world, has convinced me that it's finally time to do what I've always wanted to/said I could do: write my novel. I'm not 100% sure what it will be about (though you can be sure I'll take my pokes at big business and feature a couple of right wing heavies [grin])... I will need to spend some time doing plot, storyline and character development before I even write a page. But it's time to do it. I've always said that I want to be a novelist someday. Well, too many somedays have come and gone -- I have waited long enough, and feared the effort long enough. But I suppose I have had just enough experience now to be able to give it a shot. It may never get published; I may never even get an agent to read my stuff. But I've been writing 25-30 pages of stories and then letting them die for 15 years now. It's time to write one, start to finish, and get it out there in front of an agent to see what might happen. And now that I've gotten in the habit of writing every day, I think I'm actually ready.
The flipside to this is that in order to focus on writing whatever my novel turns out to be, I will by necessity need to cut back on blogging. There's only 24 hours in day, and I give 10 or 11 of 'em at the office to my corporate masters... lose another 1.5 to my commute each day, and another 6 or 7 to sleep. Doesn't leave much time for writing, so I need to make whatever writing I do count. I'm not killing this site; there'll be times when something happens that I just need to rant about, and I have grown far too accustomed to exchanging thoughts with the folks who've cared enough to come here. I'll still post from time to time. But I'm going to focus most of my attention and creativity elsewhere for now. And since I'll be blogging less often, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who've made the time to read this site... for making me think, and for helping make me a better writer. I still hope you'll come back from time to time -- don't give up on me completely! Thanks, guys... and I'll see you on the NY Times' Bestseller List.
'Mudge
