It's a 500 Thing. You Just Wouldn't Understand

I had originally planned on summing up my experience with Blog 365 for my 500th post. Part of the delay was because I figured I'd go less than a week between Dec. 31 and number 500. I honestly assumed that I'd find it a little difficult to downshift from posting every day to posting only when I really wanted to. The other part was because I was kind of pressed for time during the last week of December and I wanted to spend a little time on my reflection piece.

Only, we're nearly two weeks into January and I'm just now getting around to the fifth post of the year, the one needed to reach the magic number. I've been spending some time thinking about what should go into this post, and I've come to realize that I didn't really learn a lot over the last 14 months.

I am pleased that I managed to go for more than an entire year without forgetting to post on my blog. The only days that saw me delay posting were days when I was entirely removed from a computer. I still wrote my posts and back dated them when I got back to a computer with Internet access. I'm honestly surprised at my ability to form this habit. I usually suck at this. It's really difficult for me to get into a routine. I tend to fall out of habits as easily as most people get into them, although you'll notice how quickly I've reverted to sporadic posting as soon as Blog 365 ended.

As a writer, I'm not sure how much I've learned about myself. I did find out pretty early on that the more I make myself write, the easier it seems to write. The third month of posting every day seemed to be easier than the first month. There were a few lulls during the year when it got to just be a pain to get something worth writing up on the blog, but it seemed that as long as I forced my way through them, the faucet of thoughts would turn back on to a full flow in a few days at most.

Am I a better writer? I really don't know. I'd like to think that writing something every day for more than a year would make me a better writer. It'd be nice to think that going through that much practice would actually benefit me in some way, but I just don't know. I do know, however, that having to fill this space every day made me write a few really good pieces that likely never would have come about otherwise.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned is that it's a really bad idea to set yourself a daily deadline for a piece of serial fiction on a blog when you haven't already written all of the pieces when the first post goes up. I still like the idea behind that series, which makes the flop it turned into even more frustrating. I'm thinking of reworking it into a more obvious and complete comedy. I really think there's something there that I skimmed over in having to get it written so quickly last time.

Despite my not feeling like I've learned a lot about myself from this blog over the last year, I am glad that I've got this record of myself. This may end up being a snapshot of an important year in my life. I took up backpacking, which may turn into an important part of my life. I seem to be taking on the obsessive-compulsive qualities with this new hobby that I always have with any of my long-lasting hobbies, and this is chronicled nicely in this mass of writing. There's also that whole wanderlust/dissatisfaction/search for a career I can stick with thing that came up on a regular basis over the last year. You'll probably be happy to know that I threw out probably three times as many of those posts than I published. Even I get tired of the whiny little bitch I can be sometimes.

But, to end on a positive note, I've now posted 500 times, and none of you little twerps have even come close.