I write here every day, and I don’t take it for granted. It’s not difficult for me to imagine a world where I stopped writing altogether. It almost happened a decade ago. (I mentioned it here briefly.)

While I wrote very wholeheartedly at the time, I also didn’t treat my work very well. I felt like nothing was ever “good enough” to accomplish the result I wanted—a book deal, going viral, or peer recognition. Money, power, and respect. 

The practice of writing daily is a salve, amongst many other things. The function of publishing every day encourages—and occasionally requires—me to focus on the process. It has created a new definition of what being a serious writer means, one that isn’t related to the benefits that the work could help me acquire. 

I publish my work here, in a little asteroid floating through the internet—my little asteroid—because the writing is, often, very scruffy. This is my surface to publish things that I’m still in the process of thinking through, where I know very few people are doing any evaluating at all. My brain knows there will be practically no opportunities to gain validation. It can focus on creative expression. I can sleep well knowing that a work in progress won’t easily be subject to virality.

That’s why writing this blog remains one of my main things—the trunk of the metaphorical tree. 

P.S., When I started writing at a blog, I wanted to make sure I didn’t write too much about the process. I didn’t want to write a blog about blogging. Now, I’m realizing it’s possible that I wrote too little about it.

Steve Bryant and Tom Critchlow wrote good articles that got me thinking.