Writer's Workshop: A Blog Post in Ten (Long) Sentences

 

1. I started blogging back in 2008 and maintained one (if you accept that by 'maintained' I mean 'I wrote sporadically') for a decade (and it changed names once, from 'Diane's Addled Ramblings' to 'Rambling Toward Clarity,' but for the record, although I rambled quite a lot, I never really made it to clarity, so I probably shouldn't have bothered changing the name). 

2. In 2018, I started my current blog, at which (in which?) I've written even more sporadically, but since I really do love blogging (though I accept that you'd be hard-pressed to believe it, given my woeful lack of consistency), I've decided that 2024 will be the year I give it a real go again. 

3. So here are a few things about me (that may or may not be interesting) for a whole new community of writers and readers (and perhaps a few old readers and lurkers, all of whom I love). 

4. I am much older than I was when I started this endeavor and am coming up (far too soon for my liking) upon my 59th birthday (however, I still only feel about 35 [if you don't count my knees and back], so I'm thinking maybe I'll just stick with that number). 

5. I share my home with one 80-pound, sweet, kind-of-dumb black lab (Finn), one darling, chubby, little girl-cat (Cricket), and one complete dick of an orange boy-cat (Pip), all of whom I love like mad and about whom you'll likely hear a fair amount in the coming year. 

6. My daughter (Ryan), who is the light of my life and was in the third grade when I started blogging, is now all grown up and living two hours away from me, which makes me proud - and miss her terribly. 

7. I'm an extroverted introvert (I love people but they exhaust me), a master procrastinator, and I tend to find the humor in the stunningly mundane (so that's what I most often write about... usually on Facebook, but I know my friends get tired of my wordy posts... so you'll get them here!). 

8. I swim - a lot - and spend most of my time smelling of chlorine (I figure that's better than a lot of things I could smell of), but the water is my happy place and where I go to clear my head (though I think it might be the chlorine that actually does that... ). 

9. I have a chronic cancer, deal with some chronic pain (unrelated to the chronic cancer), struggle with incredibly chronic ADHD (which I've had my whole life but was only diagnosed with this year), and I'm coming out of a long, serious (and yeah, chronic) depression (all of which makes me sound like an absolute wreck... and, well... to be fair... ahem...), but I'm bound and determined that 2024 will be a stellar year and I invite you all along for the ride!

10. Oh, and last, I use lots of parentheses (ADHD, duh), ellipses, dashes, the Oxford Comma, and I swear sometimes (a fair amount, actually)... and I apologize for absolutely none of it, so if it bothers you, cover your ears! 

XO,