Just before beginning my senior year of high school I started keeping a journal, in which I wrote about the events in my life and my thoughts about them. I figured that if someday I ever wanted to write a book that would reflect a definitive high school experience, it would be a good idea to have some notes I could reference for authenticity. I don't know how useful it would be now; I suspect if I tried to write a high school book and relied on that journal for background information, any YA readers would respond with something like, "Oh, tell us more about what the world was like when Huey Lewis and the News were popular and payphones cost a quarter, Grandpa!"
That journal, which was a slightly larger than normal notebook of 100 spiral-bound pages, filled up in about a year and a half. By that time it had become such a habit for me I bought a replacement notebook at my college's bookstore, and another one after that, and another after that, stretching into the earliest years of my teaching career.
I began writing 'Summer Vacation' in May of 2009, which now makes it six years old. My original reason for starting it wasn't that different from why I kept a journal -- I wanted to give myself one more way to practice writing. If you were to click through the archive listing on the right side of the screen you're looking at right now, you'd see there have been a lot of posts written in those six years. Interesting little fact: I didn't realize this when I began the daily blogging this month, but it turns out that today's post, the final one of this month-long marathon, is also the 400th post I've published here. Since this was also the month the blog went over 10,000 hits, this other milestone being reached makes it sort of a landmark month. Overall, I feel pretty good about how this year's blogging marathon went. The posts were coming easier than they did even just a year ago, there were several of them I was proud of, and only once did I feel like I had phoned it in.
There's a saying that I've seen passed along and repeated in different articles or web pages related to writing, which says, in essence, that each writer needs to write a million words before they know their voice well enough to be ready for the serious work. I think it's a safe bet that if I only counted the writing done between all of the pencil and paper journaling (it was always pencil, by the way) and six years of blogging, I've gotten those first million out of my system, and then some. I think 'Summer Vacation' has served its purpose as far as giving me a different way to practice, and I'm ready for the serious work. And I likely have been for awhile. Even though it's been coming to me in tiny increments, I think I'm comfortable with that now.
The last time I spoke with my agent was a little over a month ago. Our conversation spiraled through twenty or so different topics, some that had nothing to do with writing and some that did, including a bit of talk about the business end of the writing world. I was surprised to discover how at ease I was talking about it. I figured part of that came from her being awesome, and part from a lot of the writing world still feeling theoretical to me, in some ways. But thinking back on that, I'm pretty sure part of it also came from me just knowing I'm ready for the serious work. And I know that keeping up with this blog has been a part of what got me here.
As for the future...well, May is over tomorrow, so the daily posts are done with for at least another year. Beyond that I don't know what's going to happen with the blog. Maybe the day will come when it makes more sense for me to build an entire website instead and start a different blog as a component of that, or maybe it will just fade off to a natural end the same way my journals eventually did. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to overplan things like this since it's impossible to really know what direction life decides to go. But as things are now, 'Summer Vacation' will absolutely be around for the foreseeable future. After all, just because I've reached a different plateau with writing and I'm starting to feel more at home there, that doesn't mean I still don't need the practice.
To anyone who followed my progress here throughout the month: Thanks for reading, even this final post which kind of ended up being a blog post about blog posts. If you got anything out of any of the posts that showed up here over the past month, or earlier, be sure to check back. There will definitely be more to come.
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