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2006-02-09 - 1:56 p.m.

Today is the one-year anniversary of me writing here in earnest. The entry I wrote a year ago was a bit of an angry rant, but there was also some good stuff in there. I had this journal before that, but I only wrote occasionally (although I kind of like some of my early entries). But after the 2/9/05 entry, I wrote about my top 5 ex-girlfriends project and I haven�t really slowed down since. I like writing here an awful lot and it turns out I�m even pretty decent at it.

So here�s the thing. Friends have often said I should write more than �just� a blog, maybe string things together into a narrative memoir. Like a book or something. And now I�m going to try and do that. Of course, it seems pretty hackneyed to toil over your labor-of-love manuscript, but I promise not to bang away at some ink-splattered typewriter or otherwise follow stereotyped behaviors of the Author.

This doesn�t mean that I�ll stop writing here. This really is so helpful, so therapeutic. Thinking things through carefully enough to write them out well is absolutely terrific. Everyone should keep a diary. Maybe not everyone should expect everyone to read their diary, but I personally find it keeps me from just blathering to know that other people will read what I write. And I also like it a lot that people read me.

Nya�s said that seeking the approval of others is at the heart of comedy or any other performance. Maybe it�s central to writing too. I really enjoy the instant gratification allowed by an online journal. People I�ve never met (on different continents, even) respond by leaving me notes or signing my guestbook or sending me email. That blows me away. It can even have a direct impact on my life (witness the time I said something stupid to Nya and how reader feedback helped me set things right).

Now authorship, like most art production, certainly isn�t the path to riches. I get the impression that most writers aren�t under that illusion anyway. As a more literary friend of mine noted, writers write because they can�t not. Yes, there are a few hacks who make their entire well-paid living writing generally not-very-good popular books (think Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele). But the vast majority of books are lucky to sell a few thousand copies.

But I think I�d like to reach thousands (or whatever) of traditional readers in addition to the dozens of you who regularly visit here. Of course, paper-and-ink books don�t have the element of direct response through comments from readers. And I know, I know. There�s no shortage of would-be authors with stories to tell. Maybe I�m just one more. Well, hopefully it�ll be compelling and interesting to a wider audience, as it seems to be to all of you.

Apparently, being selected for Oprah�s Book Club is a guarantee of huge sales. A recently selected memoir of a supposedly hard-luck life was exposed as total fiction. Perhaps she�ll need a replacement. I guess I�ve had a colorful life (and I haven�t even gotten into the time I went to jail or the time I was homeless or just my hitchhiking tales) and I promise it�s all true. Hell, I sometimes wish parts of it weren�t. But not usually.

Anyway, please wish me luck with this. And thank you again for reading. You make this all worthwhile.

� 2006 Geoff Gladstone

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