Bird by Bird

Bird by bird pic, taken by me (a lilac breasted roller, as common in Botswana as sparrows are here)

I heard Anne Lamott on Studio 360 this morning, and although I have very mixed feelings about Anne Lamott, mostly tending toward extreme dislike, and although she does seem quite odd, with her (white, old lady) dreadlocks and wound-up affectless voice, I did like her book Bird by Bird that advised writers to just do it: just go sit there, in the chair, every day at the same time, and just WRITE.

In other words, stop thinking about Who Cares and How Boring My Life Is and Why Bother and Let’s Just Check Who Has Played Words With Friends and JUST WRITE (even if writing in capitals is way too much like Heather Armstrong of dooce.com, who has her own problems these days anyway).

So here’s a spring solstice resolution: I’m back, at least for a while.

2010 in review (courtesy of WordPress)

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,800 times in 2010. That’s about 16 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 200 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 560 posts. There were 101 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 108mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was July 23rd with 93 views. The most popular post that day was Jasper Schuringa is about to get a lot more friends.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were en.wordpress.com, mail.yahoo.com, alphainventions.com, theatlanticwire.com, and translate.google.it.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for sam parnia, sagittarius, sol invictus, celebratingtime wordpress, and sam parnia 2010.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Jasper Schuringa is about to get a lot more friends December 2009
2 comments

2

Ah, Sagittarius November 2009

3

Christus Sol Invictus December 2009

4

A very convoluted way to reintroduce Sam Parnia February 2010
3 comments

5

Oh how I love word clouds September 2009

The odd addiction of writing

It’s reassuring to learn, as the Times told us yesterday, that John Updike got kicked out of his freshman creative writing class at Harvard because he didn’t write well enough.

Luckily for us, that didn’t stop him. He always knew he had to write, no matter what they said.

Writing is an odd compulsion. It’s kind of like alcoholism, but in reverse. If you’re an alcoholic, you take one day at a time: today, no drink. Tomorrow, no drink.

For me, if I don’t write one day, it’s like oh well then, why write tomorrow? Or the next day?

Today, write. Tomorrow, write. Why? I’m not sure, except that it feels so good when it’s done. Just like the alcoholic’s drinkless day.