My 100th Blog Post!

 

Dear Blog Reader

Who would have thought, when I took blog school almost two years ago, that I would still be here.

When I signed up, spontaneously, without much thought, I had no idea that one of the requirements was that you actually had to HAVE a blog site, and as part of the sessions, you would be required to post actual blogs!

I’d blithely assumed that the course would be all theory that I could put into practice later . . .  or not. If I had known I’d be expected to write blog posts right away, every few days . . . well, I would have dithered, and not signed up. But once Kerry Clare told me I was in, and what was required, I quickly set up a site, and . . . 99 posts later . . .  here I am with # 100.

Photo from Unsplash

And who are you out there, reading this blog site? Other than a few regulars, I don’t know who the readers are.

So, why do I keep writing these posts? What have I written about? Mostly ponderings and observations about life as an aging woman, friendships, books, a smattering of travel posts when the skies re-opened.

Why keep flinging these words out there into the void? Does it matter if I keep on blogging, filling pages with words that may resonate with only a very few people?

I believe that writing is for the sake of writing, to explore, to create. To write your way into something that may evolve and change. It’s not to find people, or preach, or suggest, or teach. But to simply find a home on the page for yourself. Like many writers, except for the established ones, writers write never knowing if what they write will find a reader. The desire may be there, that their words will resonate with someone and connect with a reader, maybe many readers. They say to write for yourself or for ONE ideal reader.  So, who then might that ideal reader be?

A woman. A thinker, who cares about the world and her small place in it. She is, of course, a reader, but not committed to any one genre. Curious and open to exploring both: books and the world. Open-minded, serious at times, carefree at others, indulging in hearty laughter at the silliest of things. There are days when she wonders about the uncertainty of everything, but also believes that books, travel, open-ended conversations can uncover new worlds and shift perspectives. Human nature interests her, the power of story, the deeper connections between women, particularly older women. What are their stories? How do they navigate their journeys, grapple with the losses and celebrations, the delights and sorrows? How do they see their changing selves?

Maybe that’s the reader I write for. Maybe that reader is myself. Maybe that reader is you.

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Richard Russo writes in his book THE DESTINY THIEF (Essays on Writing, Writers and Life) that when he asked a former teacher (who he’d previously taken a workshop with) about taking another course, the teacher said that ‘most writers had about a thousand pages of shitty prose in them . . . and these have to be expelled before they can hope to write seriously.’

If you’ve enjoyed these 100 posts, thank you. If you haven’t, then consider them an expulsion of shitty blog posts before . . . better ones emerge?

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Some of my most viewed blog posts:

Where is Home?

Tuck Away Your Diversities

Buy Less, Live More

And my very first blog post, way back on Sep 5, 2021:

Sparking Joy, Being Average

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Some Joan Didion quotes that say, better than I can, about why it is I write:

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” Joan Didion

“The impulse to write things down is a particularly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.” Joan Didion

“You get the sense that it’s possible simply to go through life noticing things and writing them down and that this is OK, it’s worth doing. That the seemingly insignificant things that most of us spend our days noticing are really significant, have meaning, and tell us something” Joan Didion