200th post
| November 2, 2009 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
It’s hard for me to believe, but ~9 months after I started to blog (1/30/09), I am now posting my 200th post. I thought I would have run out of things to say by now.
I blog because I need to improve my narrative writing. At least that is the reason I obstinately give when people ask me why. While I’m a decent technical writer, I have no experience writing stories, narratives, or just writing intending to amuse and entertain. I’ve never considered myself a “writer” – that title I give freely to my two sisters and my Mom, which why I’m still shocked when people come up to me after reading this blog and complement my writing. I always harbor a suspicion that they actually think they are talking to one my sisters, because (at least one of them) looks uncannily like me. Surely there has been some mistake.
But then there is the real reason I started blogging. Even more selfish than the one above. I write because I have to. There’s something inside that insists that I put my life down on paper. On and off, throughout the years I have kept journals. I HATED journaling but I had to do it. I hated it because I was writing for only myself, which was enough, but at the same time absolutely pointless, because the whole point of journaling is that no one reads it (unless you are famous and I sincerely doubt, at the ripe old age of 24, being NOT famous, that I will BECOME famous). Blogging fulfills my need to write and get my life on paper, while not being entirely pointless as I’m also connecting with others. So you see, this blog is not the product of a “real” writer, but rather the ramblings of a person so desperate to put her thoughts down so she can GET THEM OUT OF HER HEAD, that she vomits out (a portion) of her life onto the Internet each day. (OK – that was a little vivid and probably over the top, but you get the point).
One little part of me is contemplating writing a fictional biography of my life later on. If so, that would make it worth it to get my life on paper now in order to have material for later. It would be done in the James Harriot style, where it is based on real life, but details have been changed to make it funnier, or time frames have been altered for continuity, or maybe it didn’t happen to me, but I saw it happen etc. Because I have no imagination, (except for the part of me that can too clearly imagine all sorts of horsey disasters before they happen) it would be fiction based on real life. I think my life might be interesting enough by the time I go into retirement? I try not to think about it too much because then I might be admitting that I wanted to be a real writer.
On to the fun stuff.
What has happened in the first 100 posts
- I bought a new truck
- Completed my first over 50 mile ride
- Bought my first hoof boots
- Drove Minx in a cart
- Minx died
- Rode Farley in a hackamore
- Did my first organized, non-endurance trail ride (poker ride)
- Considered doing Tevis.
Posts 101-200
- First guest blog story (bear story)
- Completed my first endurance multiday (distances of 50+ miles a day).
- I bought a new saddle
- I decided to do Tevis
- I received my first (and only) blog award
- Rode in the Tevis (and did not complete)
- Started dressage lessons
- Did my first actual trail/conditioning ride in hoof boots
- Tested out the theory of gravity.
- Went to my first dressage show!
I wonder what the next 100 will bring?
Am i the one who looks like you? Wow, I guess I am. Interestingly, I journal for the same reasons that you blog, I find it very comforting that no one will ever read them.
Loreleigh
That’s becuaes you are anti-social in an even bigger way than I am. While I am only apparently capable of communicating via the written word, you are not capable of communicating either in person OR in writing…..I present as evidence the fact you don’t have a blog they way the REST of the family does. (this is said toungue in cheek). 🙂
Let me think of an interesting blog for you:
1. The account of an accounting student….
2. The accounting of a student
3. why I’m going to a party school when I don’t party
4. You can’t make me
5. Observations of a people hater
Nope, I just don’t think any of the above are just right….give me time, I’ll come up with someething for you.
And yes – you look like me. it’s distirbing to see a home video and it’s you in profile and I think it is me….
Just commentary for the oh so nice, loving older sister.
“You can’t make me” is an awesome blog name!
I enjoyed the look back at your early stuff. Thanks!
Oddly, I never blogged or journaled or anything before I got into horses. Then I thought maybe I should keep track of what I’d seen while trail riding, so I started writing down little summaries of each ride – but actual writing makes my hand hurt, and keeping track of the notebook was a pain, so I took it online.
If you want to get published, consider writing something mass-market that incorporates crazy things you’ve seen in your life. Like mysteries or (shudder) romance. I still think I’ve got a couple of “crazy Southerner” novels’ worth of material in my head. Maybe I will become the next John Grisham!
If I ever do publish something, it won’t be for a very very very long time. But, since anything is possible, I think it’s a good idea to take notes NOW on what I see and hear so I can refer back to “real” life later.
I should start writing material and change names to protect privacy in case someone reads them after I die, but get events written down. Then it’s not “journalling”, it’s research!!!