Year One in the Can

Today is the first anniversary of the beginning of this blog.

Looking back at my very first entry, I note that I said I'd give it a month and see how it goes. Well, it went. And how! Doesn't even seem like it's been a whole year since I wrote those words.

Turns out those early fears about not having enough material to sustain a blog were quite unfounded. I probably could have done at least half a year's worth of posts on the Rogues Gallery alone. (Actually, I'm guessing I already have.) However, the day-to-day crazy that goes on around here has been a blessed fount of inspiration that doesn't seem to be going dry yet. Which is a good thing, cause I was a bit concerned there for a while.

Library blogs (blogs in general, I'm sure) seem to have a limited shelf-life. Granted, the genre isn't very old as such things go, but three of the big ones from my perspective--Liberry Blooze, Male Librarian Centerfold and Aaron is Not Amused--closed up shop, went into archive mode or otherwise changed their mission statement within the past year. Made me wonder if there was some sort of inherent half-life to the prospect of library blogging. Sure, I know I won't be doing this forever and may one day get sick of it and shake the exit stick myself, but I somehow don't think it will be because I've exhausted my material. After all, crazy is forever. More likely, when that day comes and I do unlock the after hours drop box for the final time, I'll have moved on to something else entirely and will likely begin chronicling it.

Writing this blog has been a very rewarding experience both personally and creatively. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my only regret with it is that I didn't start it sooner. I should have started it from day one on the job, or better still, in August of 2001, the month before I got the job, shortly after we moved to the Tri-Metro area. Hell, nearly every job I've had in the past ten years has been blog-worthy as far as sheer drama goes. (I really really should have been blogging when I worked in Charlotte, NC, at a music store called Repo Records. I even considered it and was going to call it the Repo-Man Diaries. That would have been an amazing blog, cause the customers that store attracted were easily as astounding or more than the ones here. Plus, there was that whole bit of drama after the store was held up at gunpoint twice in one month, prompting me to seek employment elsewhere as my life is worth more to me than $6 per hour.)

The best surprise of all, though--something I had not even considered when I started this thing--is that I’m not alone. There are loads of other folks plowing the “liberry” field and doing it quite well. As an addict of serial storytelling, I subscribe to many of them. And it’s great to see the experiences of people who frankly have it a lot worse off than me as far as stress and hassles go. I've corresponded with quite a number of such colleagues whose work I admire. (Okay, so some of them turned out to be men posing as women, but whatever. Still good stuff.) My wife has even grudgingly begun to see this blog as not quite the huge waste of time she once thought it was. She still doesn’t read it, but she likes the bits I read to her on occasion.

I guess my only other regret is that according to the stats I've written over 200,000 words since November 18 of 2003. That's a lot of output and I'm proud of most of it. However, if I’d put the kind of time and effort into my fiction as I do in my non-fiction, I’d be quite a bit more prollific. As it stands, my lengthiest work of fiction is just over 200,000 words, is yet unfinished and has taken me 12 years to achieve. Almost makes me want to cry. Or get off my ass.

I have to say, I still like my job. The way things seem to be working out, it looks like I’ll be around this place for a while yet. So I guess I’ll give this whole blogging thing another year and see how it goes. And maybe by next year, I'll have finally gotten around to revealing the secret identity of Ron the Ripper.