Break It Down

Only by consulting the archives of this blog can I recall that I began it as early as January of 2009. If you yourself go back as far as that, you'll see that it was something rather different then. I was itching to write some kind of blog- any blog, really. I started it before having decided what it would be about, and the decisions I made on what to call it and what it should look like reflect that uncertainty. To date I remain unfocused, and probably it has suffered as a result.

Beginning with February of that year, I had a strong run of five months in terms of frequency. It would probably pain me too much to say what quality of writing I was doing. The latter months of that summer marked the inception of a lull which drew on for some time and was only intermittently interrupted by fleeting bursts of good intentions. The following spring brought an end to that, as I firmly resolved that I would write and publish every single day without fail. There would be no excuses if I got tired or busy or didn't want to.

I stayed true to that, and wrote at times while bleary-eyed from fatigue or under the duress of having a scant few minutes to come up with something. It made things considerably easier when I realized I could write a surplus of posts on which I could draw when I was hard-pressed to write for one reason or another. I feel that improved the quality of writing, as I always knew I had time to come up with a good idea and to stay with it until it felt ready. This little system may not have elevated the popularity of my blog into the stratosphere, but it has made something of it for which I feel pride.

Just recently my string of days with a post was broken. Every day that it was extended the importance of maintaining it and the severity of breaking it grew. Now that I start again with a streak of two (counting this very one), it would be easy to return to the erratic and inconsistent schedule of the early days. I can be like that. It all would begin with breaking the routine. I couldn't bear to regress at this point, however. I won't claim that the day didn't count because it wasn't my fault any more than I accept that a hitting streak goes on in baseball when you sit out a game, but I know that because it was no fault of my own I can go on as I have with confidence.