The Incubation Period is Over

First I will say, my book about doing something new every week for a year is written.

Second, the book will need to be re-written NINETY or so times before I will ever see it published. Whether through a publishing house or vanity press, or even a crude stack of 8.5x11 paper I sell to friends, I am not finished until that day comes. Writing a book is more work than I ever imagined, but that is what brings me back . . .

The sudden inspiration . . .

On December 31, 2008, I received the sudden inspiration to do something new each week of the approaching year. On December 31, 2009, I completed my goal by running the same 5K that started the book, only this time in a bikini in the 30° snow-covered park. Who knew that the first time I wore a bikini I’d also be wearing a scarf.


The book that changed my life . . .


In 2010, I was on such a high from completing my goal, I thought, Why not do this two years IN A ROW and make a sequel to my book? The only problem with that? It would have been a really bad sequel. Kind of like when I watched The Neverending Story II as a child; I couldn’t do that to myself. The first book changed my life. The second book didn’t, so in May 2010, when I tried to write my name with a red Sharpie precariously gripped between my toes, I knew it was time to stop.

I haven’t stopped embracing new experiences though, nor has the desire to share them stopped. And this empty blog makes me wonder if anyone who followed it thinks I ran that 5K again and died from hypothermia shortly after crossing the finish line.

I see three reasons to blog again:

1. The blog itself. Probably a good idea for someone who’s working on a book.

2. 2011 new experiences. I don’t need one strictly every week—I already did that. The regularity is not as important as embracing the opportunity when it presents itself.

3. The original book. I’ve thought of it as just “sitting there” since I finished it in December of 2010, but it’s been incubating, growing if only in my mind, and this blog will help me make concrete developments.

This is a place to record, reflect, and revise—maybe even post a chapter or two from the original book. The incubation period is ending, the back burner has done its job, and it’s time to start writing again.