I have 1209 blog posts, not including this one. 65 of them are drafts.
I am so exhausted that Friday morning when my alarm went off and I sat up in bed (thanks to my vertigo problems, I have a multi-step process to getting out of bed…sitting up against the wall is step one) and my eyes filled with tears.
I cannot do this, I thought. I could sleep for another ten hours and it still wouldn’t be enough.
Tonight at 8:32 I sent the first issue of the newspaper to the printer.
And immediately wanted to throw up.
All I can think about is the mistakes. The missed headlines, or incorrect captions, or the amount of white space, or the misspelled names. It’s out of my hands now, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do.
For a control freak, it’s a horrible, horrible feeling.
Sometimes I banish posts to the draft folder because even though I felt a need to write something, I’m not sure I need others to read something. Other drafts end up there because I get interrupted while writing, and whatever groove I was in is long gone by the time I return.
I will probably delete some of those drafts, like this one, from Aug. 31, 2011:
About three years ago, I decided it was time to accept the fact that I would not have kids. I was about to turn 35, the age at which pregnancy becomes rather precarious, and it was hard enough to accept the fact that I would probably
That’s right. It ends mid-sentence. And I wouldn’t know how to fix that post, since I am 100% totally fine with never having kids. I’ve mourned that loss, accepted the reality in front of me, and I don’t really have much more to say on that topic. I wonder what I was planning to say on that topic four years ago.
Anyway. I’ve tried three different posts this weekend. Each post vastly different, each one just a little to raw to publish just yet.
So instead, you get this. A little insight into what it’s like to blog for 10 years (it will officially be 10 years on May 24). And as a bonus, you get this gem: writers don’t publish everything they write. But they write a lot, because just like any skill, the practice of it makes them better.
Even if what they write never sees the light of day.
