Rip Van Wrinkled: eD turns 100

Happy birthday eD!!!

I am proud to say I have achieved my goal to post 100 times during the first year of eD.  I am nervous to say, right here on the internets, that I have set the same goal in the next year!


October 13, 2012, 200 posts?  Not going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile is.  As Mark Twain said, "actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often."  Let's see if I can prove him wrong (he also said, "a person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read," so I humbly ask that you help me along the way). 


As with our 50th birthday, I am pleased to share a few stats that some of you just may find interesting (this is a family and friends blog, so I have to believe that these numbers are pretty damn impressive!).  I may even throw a poll or two out there (having nothing to do with Amanda Knox, the Greek debt situation, or my Kindle).   


Meanwhile, thank you to everyone for reading, giving me compliments and inspiration, or reminding to get off my isle-seat to post.  The fact that some of you actually read this stuff means the world to me.  Bloody hell, now if I could just get you to comment...


Happy writing,
Dominic

It's Not Just a Hobbsy

If you post, they will come.

My posts stretch further across the calendar, lately, and part of me hopes that at least some of you have noticed. You are my thirty-two, after all. I have certainly taken note because it is within posts that a nagging feeling finds its way onto my shoulders. Usually this feeling surfaces right before I fall asleep, after I have processed the list of other things that have to roll over to the next to-do. It is after a long day of not-posting, right before I drift off to sleep that my conscious plants its mantra: if you post it, they will come. 

You see, I used to have a back-log of words scribbled here and there that ultimately found a home on eD. The beginning of the blog was a different time, for me. I was writing every day, my attention was driven by curiosity and characters. And there were characters, everywhere. There were notes and ideas scribbled on insets to writing books, flagged pages within the works of fiction that I admired and flew through, draft e-mails addressed to me with my own rants, and a notepad on my iPhone filled with rambles and sketches. It was out-and-about where words found me. 

Damascas-ers Annoy Me

My ears are covered and I cannot hear you!

I have a slight addiction to reading how-to write books.  The need to feed on ego-driven lessons about what an author learned when they wrote their first three award novels is now getting to a dangerous level.  The more confident the writer is that they have all the answers, the sweeter the read.  It's strange because I curse them with the flip of each page.  It's almost like, why are you writing a how-to invest and make millions book when you should be following your own advice and investing to make millions.

Addiction aside, I do come across a few nice nuggets of wisdom that generally apply to life in general.  This one, happens to be my latest favorite and adopted mantra for the month of June (plan a mantra a month in advance was my mantra in May):

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.  Natalie Goldberg - Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala Library)

So feast on that you eD slugs, and get ready for one king-hell of a month of June where the internal editor goes on vacation to Damascas.