Closing the Year
At the end of this year, what are you most grateful for? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. I’d love to think of you as more than just subscribers, complete individuals with unique stories, and even though the vast majority of you will not take me up on that offer, one can still hope, right?
I’m taking a break. I plan on returning on MLK Day, or Monday, January 17 for my readers abroad who missed the reference. I think in the coming year, I’ll follow a semester-like schedule. Maintaining the blog is still a work of love. I think the only way it’ll stay that way is if I maintain it on my own terms.
People are reading. Over the past year I’ve gotten random notes from teachers and teenagers who resonated with one article or another. That’s uplifting and largely why I keep writing. It’s not like fiction. With a book, you put it out because it’s a tale that needed to be told, but blogging is vulnerable work, sometimes to the detriment of the author.
In the coming year there is at least one guest post in the queue. Remember Oscar? A couple other readers have promised submissions as well, which makes for exciting times around here. You deserve different perspectives.
The one thing I’ll emphasize for the last time is that the blog never set out to focus on one topic or theme. If you subscribed under the impression the blog would exclusively cover personal finances or technology or relationships, I will not take it personally if you choose to unsubscribe. There’s a plugin I may choose to invest in that would allow me to let readers subscribe to specific content categories. It’s a few hundred dollars though, and in the end, does it make sense to make the investment if doing so would water down the already slow stream of information? Your time is valuable, and I only want you to stick around if you find the general feel of the blog to be conducive with your reading taste.
Also, next year I turn 40, and although authors have found their start at much later years, at some point I have to ask myself if publishing fiction is truly in my future. If not, I suppose that’s okay, but no sense in continuing to beat myself up over a dream that may have never been for me.
I am very grateful for you. I know you don’t read every week’s entry. I know not every topic will linger in the back of your mind. Still, you’ve stuck around, and that’s more than a writer can ask for.
So, what were you most grateful for this year?
Yours, with affection,
Joe
