Yesterday, December 4th, is the 4 year anniversary of beginning my writing.  I wanted to take a break from the poetry and talk about that anniversary, my writing, and what it all means, and has meant, to me.

By the numbers, I’ve written over 1,000 posts for WordPress and Tumblr including drafts and private posts, and I’ll post my 1,000th poem either by New Years or shortly thereafter.  I have nearly 300 followers on WordPress, over 250 on Tumblr, and over 850 on Twitter.  I’ve written and published 2 books, I’m working on a 3rd, and I have enough written to publish a 4th and 5th.  I’ve publicly posted 5 poems a week since October of 2012 and written weekday haiku to two friends since February and July of 2013.  I rarely miss any of the 15 poems that go out each week.

But writing, and especially poetry, isn’t purely a numbers game.  There are emotions and a heart behind it all.  When I started writing, it was on a whim in response to a 365 project my friend Margaret started.  I had no great aspirations. I wanted to do something fun.  But I wanted something else as well.  The words I write, and the cadence in which they are spoken, are my voice.  They are the things I’ve thought but never spoken.  Words I caged in and kept to myself.  And I’ve known for a long time now that part of the reason I started writing was because I wanted to record them.  I wanted to prevent what I thought and felt from fading away and being forgotten.  But lately I’ve realized something else as well:  I wanted to share those words and my heart.

Thank you all for treating me and my heart with so much kindness these past four years.  I wish I had the words and wit to express the enormity of my feelings on this matter.  I am so very grateful.

So where do I go from here?  Regular 5-times-a-week posting will continue, at least for another year.  I’m not sure how I’ll feel about all this by the end of 2014, but I want to keep going until then.  I’m working on a paperback version of Ever Since, and Evermore, my 2nd book, and I will publish and post about it as soon as possible.  I hope to complete books 3, 4, and 5 by the end of next year.  I would like to produce another book or two in that time as well, but I still need to write those.  I’m also experimenting with YouTube, and I may start posting readings there.
But who knows?  I feel like I’m still just getting started, and I feel hopeful about where things go from here.

If you like what you’re reading here, you can also find me on:
Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Facebook, Facebook fanpage, Google+, and my About.me page with links to all my books and all my blogs.