Monday, December 31, 2012

The Blogging Every Day In the Year 2012 project: a letter to my readers.

Dear reader of hightouchmegastore,

Today is the last day of the Blogging Every Day In The Year 2012 project. I have blogged 362 times up to this point. Assuming that the world does not end before I publish this post, I will have blogged 363 times. That's only three days missing, if I'm counting right--2012 was, as you may or may not remember, a leap year. (I had to go back and check.) In any case, I feel satisfied that I have fulfilled the spirit of my project, if not the precise letter.

...(363) as soon as I publish this.

I worried, at a certain moment, that I would reach a saturation point--that there wouldn't be enough topics. Well, not that there wouldn't be enough topics, but that the genre of the blog post would become tedious. Well, not even that. I worried, I think, that I would reach the limits of my own inventiveness. That's probably the nature of a project like this--it's not enough to just do it, one wants to do it well. One wants not to say, at the end of a day, "Actually, I don't have anything to say. Also, my dinner was boring, and also my lunch, so I can't write about that. Also, my character is shallow and materialistic and perhaps I am a narcissist? Also, I am annoyed with myself for having promised...who, exactly? a post a day. Unreasonable. I'm a bad person. Blah. No more!"

But now, having finished it, I admit that I feel proud of this project.  I admit that I liked saying, "I'm blogging every day in the year 2012." As the year went on, I liked saying it more and more.

And I like the blog as a form of writing. People have said that blogs are over, and I can see that they might be, in some sense. But I like that the blog post is more elastic than the tweet or the status update. I like that it invites a little more exploration, that it can contain more than one link, that it can reach out to other sources in more expansive ways. I like what I've learned about writing from writing a blog.

The nice thing is that I can and will still keep writing here. I might not write every day, but I do like knowing I could if I wanted to. And I really am grateful--truly--to you, dear reader, for reading what I write here, regularly or intermittently. I think of you as my friend.  I find that I like writing for my friends.

Happy New Year to you! I hope to be reading your blogs, status updates, tweets, comments, and other writing in all genres in the bright new year 2013.

love, htms

p.s.

9 comments:

  1. Thank you for your blogging generosity, HT. Your posts have brightened my year. Truly. And while it must feel good to be out from under the "every day" pledge, I hope to find you here often in 2013. Happy New Year!

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  2. I have so enjoyed reading your daily blogging entries this past year, HT. Thank you for helping me to feel connected to home and friends, though I am many miles away. As radagast said, I hope to see you out here often in 2013. Happy New Year!

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  3. Congratulations on your success, and thanks for your persistence and your potent observations of self and the world about you. As a member of "the people," I want to tell you how much I appreciated being admitted to your worldview. My favorite posts were the "name that Tom Jones tune" series that let us see a poem in process. May the inspirations continue!

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  4. I, too, have looked forward to and enjoyed reading your blog every day. It is a gift and a visual reminder of how very creative you are.

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  5. I am applauding wildly. Can you hear me across the valley? This has been a worthy achievement, HTMS. Well played, I say.

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  6. Nice work, HighTouch! It's interesting how some goals stick and others don't... I commend your perseverance.

    And FWIW, I don't think blogging is dead (only for me, haha!). I think that a certain kind of poster has just migrated to Facebook and Twitter. What remains are people who are reading and writing short personal essays, which is great!

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  7. I have loved the little letters every day. Thank you!

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  8. A fantastic year of blog posts, indeed! Hooray for you! I have looked forward to your posts, recipes, thoughts, letters, poems, videos, links, and reveries. May the new year be full of good meals and inspiration.

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  9. It was a gift, this year of daily blogging. And a true achievement. I saw you posted today too. I'm glad. I don't want to go too long without your voice. And yes. Not only did you blog, you blogged well. Thank you High Touch.

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