Six years ago today, on July 14, 2014, I published the first three posts on this blog. I wanted to start a portfolio of my writing; I didn’t want readers to think just one post was all I’d do; and, maybe most urgent at the time, I couldn’t decide which one would go out first.

Thus, three posts appeared to start categories I still write about sometimes: Words Worth Defending, Sustaining Books, and Browsing through Bartlett’s. 

A lot has changed in six years, more than I ever could have imagined (or, in so many ways, ever could have wanted). To me, there is a reason why change and improvement are different words. They have so little to do with each other too often.

I’ve developed as a person due not only to my writing, but to your commenting. Without readers’ comments, I’d never have discovered the Imaginary Writers’ Room was so much fun to write about. (I’m nearly sure its population was there anyway, but thank you.) From questions that took off as threads of their own to things I thought would draw comments here, but got them only from Facebook readers, I’ve learned not to assume about my readership.

I’ve learned such a consciousness of words, even beyond what I started with, that I just changed the end of the previous sentence to “readership” when I started with “audience.” You’re not listening, so I’ll leave out the audio. (Just as well — I need some dental work.)

I’ve learned not only the fun of discovering a series of posts that could be written about something else, from hymns to Mister Rogers, but I’ve learned that I can reach back to something I wrote years ago and write a sort of reply to my earlier self.

I’ve even learned that I can dump a category when it wears out. Serious Questions, a list of questions I thought might be individual posts that never quite happened, were fun for a while — until the world just got too full of truly serious questions for those little musings.

I’ve learned that there’s a sort of “click” in my mind when an idea arrives… the handle of the Writers’ Room door, perhaps? I keep paper nearby and don’t go far from it, even though there are phases when I find my ideas by going out, walking away from something else and wanting to send my mind something else or just spotting something. I still see the street sign that warns of “pervious concrete pavement,” one of those first Words Worth Defending ideas, and I remember walking past it until I thought “Hey, there’s an idea!”

So I’m sticking around for the foreseeable future… however short that may be in these strange days. Thanks, everybody.

Margaret Serious has a page on Facebook.

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