And so it begins....

I cannot believe I have started a blog. I cannot believe this for many reasons, but first and foremost I cannot believe it because I am essentially computer illiterate. Just last night, in fact, a computer savvy friend, watching me struggle with my mouse (yes, it is possible, if you are truly inept, to struggle with a mouse), asked me if I knew that the "tab" key caused the cursor to jump to the next section on the screen. Needless to say, I did not. However, it has become clear to me over the past five minutes that in this day and age the smarter of my two collies could possibly start her own blog, if it weren't for the awkwardly large paws, although I am so impressed by apple these days that I wouldn't be shocked if they actually had a solution for this. Dog Blogs? Go for it, Jobs. 

That leads me nicely into the second reason I am shocked I have started a blog: although I am not self-conscious by nature, and I almost always want to be read, writing in the form of a blog, and forcing myself to write a minimum of 750 words each day (more on that to come), is going to require some surrendering of control over what I write and how I write it.  Although I know I will still revise and edit what I write here, it will not be obsessively or time-consumingly, as that would require me to give up things I need for survival, such as income and online Scrabble.  I will have to release text into the blog universe (or at least to those who know about the blog and actually read it: I'm talking to you, Joel, and you too, soon-to-be browbeaten Nicole) that is essentially raw, occasionally embarrassing (I could erase that line about the collies and the aside to Steve Jobs, for example, but I won't, as it illustrates this point so well) and in a stream-of-conscious style that I usually disdain. My hope is that this will feel okay, after a while, and that possibly it will even be good for me, in that if nothing else, I will actually be writing. 

This leads me to the final reason I cannot believe I have started a blog, and it is, as final reasons often are, the most important one. As someone for whom writing has always been a tremendous source of pleasure, and more--the way I best sort out what and why I feel and think about practically everything--as well as my chosen profession, most potentially useful skill and an essential component of my identity, I have been doing very little of it for the past few years, since becoming a mother, actually, and I finally decided this state of affairs needed to stop. I have always scoffed at blogs a little, to be totally honest, as navel-gazing, writing for want-to-be writers instead of "real" ones, whatever that means, but the truth of the situation is that the people I know who have blogs are real writers, in that they are writing, and most of them are incredibly accomplished and talented and productive at writing and everything else they do, which is possibly not a coincidence. I want to be these things too, more than I am often willing to admit, and so much so in fact that a lack of effort has been my solution for way too long in terms of alleviating my anxiety about not living up to my own expectations. 

So let me stop now and do a word count.  (That took a little while because I could not figure out how to do with the computer's assistance so was forced to determine a line average of 20 words and count lines.) I think I should have almost 700 words by now, so I will end by explaining the title of the blog and the goal I have set for myself. We have all heard of or read about writers who set word goals for themselves and write EVERY DAY no matter what. I have been hearing and reading about these writers for, oh, about 30 years and have thus far never constructed a writing shed in my backyard, risen at 5 before the rest of my family for concentrated alone time, or established a symbiotic relationship with a "writing buddy" with whom I exchange the day's work for helpful feedback. I have tried all manner of writing workshops, including some very expensive ones during my two years at Columbia, and although they helped me get work done to a varying degree in the moment, their effects were not lasting, their impact on my own inertia minimal where it counts: at home and over time. 

So as a person who has rarely made let alone kept a New Year's resolution,  spent her childhood inscribing two, maybe three pages of every little pink keyed diary I was ever given, this is my pledge to myself in writing, online, where I am told the real word now exists. I am going to write at least 750 words every day, on this blog (the word still makes me cringe--let's hope that fades), for as long as I can, maybe for the rest of my life if it works. Because I want to be writing, I need to be writing. And the funny thing about writing, is once you do it, you're doing it. 750 words. I have to say, I feel better already.