3:56 am — Again and Finally

Posted on by Jenna Brownson

This is the 100th day in a row I have written here. Every day since October 25th, I have taken my place in front of my laptop to share a thought or observation with whomever clicks through from Facebook or Twitter, gets an email notification, or stumbles across a link elsewhere.

In these past 100 days, I have written about a wide array of topics in what I hope you have come to hear as my “voice.” That’s what every writer hopes to convey, word after word, phrase after paragraph. I think I’ve had some success doing that for both those of you who know me personally and those of you I’ve yet to meet.

I thought you might be interested, due to the retrospective theme of this post, to learn some things about this experience. According to WordPress,

  1.  I have seen visitors from six of the seven continents. (I bet they’ve got the internet on Antarctica. I also bet they’ve got better things to do than read anyone’s blog.)
  2. The visitor furthest from my home was an anonymous Australian; the visitor(s) closest to my home came from upstairs: my spouse and two teenage children.
  3. My least visited post was one that I thought was pretty good.
  4. My most visited post was, in essence, Part II of three wherein I shared an experience about friendship.

As for what I have learned in the last 100 days, I thought I’d try to sum that up, too:

  1. The feedback I have gotten from both regular and sporadic readers has been great. In many ways, it has renewed my faith in the idea of “social media.”
  2. I have connected with one WordPress blogger in a meaningful way. One hundred days ago, she was a stranger to me, but in these last few months, her regular comments and camaraderie have kept me going on many an empty morning.
  3. Morning after morning, I have pictured one of you as I write. Someone once advised me to “have a singular reader in mind as you write.” Spoiler alert: You may have been in my mind’s eye one of these last 100 days.
  4. I have the brain capacity to write only 2,000 a day. Therefore, if I spend 500 of them here, I’ve only got 1,500 to give to my novel in progress.
  5. Ninety-seven days ago, I started my current novel, Accidental Gravitas. Unlike every other time I have written a story, I have not written every day. While I place some of the blame on my personally not loving the story I’m writing, I know that a great deal of my delay in getting it done rests squarely on the shoulders of this blog.

I’m a one-track-minded sort of person. After 100 posts, I know I need to put myself back into the seat of daily writer of a story  — not a blog.

Product Details

So, I’m going on a blog vacation for a while.

If you want to check in, please don’t hesitate to write to me:

jennabrownson@gmail.com

As always, thank you for your presence in my life. It has been felt and deeply appreciated. Ciao.

13 thoughts on “3:56 am — Again and Finally”

  1. I am fascinated by your obsession with numbers and statistics. No, that’s not quite right. I’m fascinated that I’ve known you for one and a half decades, and I am just now learning about said obsession.

    I love that you’re finding a way to make social media more meaningful for yourself and the rest of us in this community you’ve created.

    Buon scrittura! Arrivederci!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. I’ll miss you while you’re gone, Jenna. Good luck with the novel. I understand–my own fiction writing has taken a back seat because of the blog; it’s definitely a big time suck. Too fun for me to give up yet, though! Hopefully see you back here soon.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Nope. I think she’s serious. I will go start one of those Go Fund Me pages to see if we can get her to come back.

    Disclaimer: I don’t actually know what a “Go Fund Me” page is, but it seems to be the standard answer to fix anything these days.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment

Early morning writer, mother to four, wife to one, recovering lawyer, End-of-Life Doula.