{"id":5927,"date":"2011-12-09T06:26:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T11:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=5927"},"modified":"2011-12-09T10:04:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T15:04:00","slug":"happy-anniversary-to-the-life-literary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=5927","title":{"rendered":"Happy Anniversary to The Life Literary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote the first very humble, very simple post<\/a> for this blog one year ago today.\u00a0 Ah yes, friends, I remember that moment well.\u00a0 There I stood (I stand to write) in my darkened home office, the monitor lighting my face even as this\u00a0new venture was about to light my way.\u00a0 I had set up the blog, it was ready to go, but I hadn’t written anything yet.\u00a0 There sat the blank page, as inviting as a freshly poured slab of cement begging for someone to\u00a0scrape\u00a0his initials into it.\u00a0 Most of what I write starts as a longhand draft or outline in my journal.\u00a0 Usually, my typing it on this page becomes the second draft.\u00a0 At that moment, I had no draft of nuthin’.\u00a0 Just\u00a0the ocean of the new blog, stretching out before me.\u00a0 It seemed such a shame not to write anything at that moment, so I did what I recommend to anybody who isn’t sure what to write: put the pen to the paper and write anything.\u00a0 Start the ink flowing and see what happens.\u00a0 That post became the first of 418.<\/p>\n

What I accomplished this year…<\/span><\/p>\n

I collected ideas<\/a> for ways anybody, especially the non-literary professional like me, can add a literary dimension to his or her life.\u00a0 From keeping a journal<\/a> to writing photo captions<\/a> or a daily sentence<\/a>, to memorizing poems<\/a> or hosting a literary event<\/a>, I wrote about both simple and also more involved ways to live literarily, actual ideas a person could use.\u00a0 More than ever, I love words and passionately believe in their power to heal, to entertain, to ennoble, to deepen and broaden living.\u00a0 I also believe, more than ever, that anybody can find a way to deliberately, purposefully interact with words, that suits his or her time and ability.<\/p>\n

Besides\u00a0sharing ideas for how to live literarily, I also wrote some things of my own this past year:
\nFrom the Bride’s Father’s Notebook<\/a> – Reactions and observations from the two weeks surrounding our daughter’s wedding.
\nGarden: A Love Story<\/a> – Essays and pictures and notes from a season of gardening.
\nThe Duck Series<\/a> – Where would we be without a few duck puns? (22 and counting)
\nNotes on Life and Time<\/a> – My\u00a0wit and wisdom\u00a0on some of the bigger realities.
\nThe Rider Chronicles<\/a> – A grandfather’s take on having and loving a grandson
\nHitting Bottom and Sitting Alone on the Bus<\/a> – My attempts to be funny.
\nLetters from When I Lived Abroad – In Jerusalem<\/a> and Bombay<\/a>
\nAmong the Liberators<\/a> – A walking tour of Virginia Avenue, Washington’s own Avenue of the Americas. (still in progress)
\nFifteen Original Poems <\/a>– Just some fun rhymes.\u00a0 Nothing that would ever make the New Yorker.<\/em>
\nThe Life Literary on Twitter<\/a> – I wrote 290 tweets, mostly exercises in brevity or shamelessly advertising this blog.
\nMarigold Man<\/a> – A novel over two-thirds finished.\u00a0 I\u00a0 only wrote a few tid-bits of the text in this blog, but I did write a few reflections on writing 50,000 words in one month.<\/p>\n

And more.\u00a0 Look at the list of categories<\/a> along the right-hand side of the blog page to see what I wrote.\u00a0 Click a few.\u00a0 Also, browse the tabs directly under the header (the picture across the top of the page) to get an idea of what this blog is all about.<\/p>\n

…and what’s ahead for\u00a02012 <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s next for The Life Literary<\/em>?\u00a0 By April, I plan to have completed the second draft of Marigold Man.\u00a0 I’ll be looking for a few people to read it and comment.\u00a0 I’ll probably be writing a few less blog posts to make time for that.\u00a0 I will have completed Among the Liberators<\/span>, as well as a year of garden notes.\u00a0 I’d like to figure out if either one is publishable.\u00a0 Speaking of that, I’d like to celebrate, one year from now, that 2012 was the first year I made money from something I wrote.\u00a0 I’ll be adding more ideas for living literarily, hoping to publish those in a collection someday as well.\u00a0 I’d also like to increase this blog’s readership.\u00a0 I haven’t tried much, yet, to become known.\u00a0 I think 2012 will be the year for that, too.<\/p>\n

I wish for every and anyone reading this, joy in words, in sprinkling some nice ones in your daily living.\u00a0 In a way, our world, our lives, our environment are flooded with words, but so many are off-the-cuff, crass, shallow, repetitious, with little substance or durability.\u00a0 I’m advocating a more significant, thoughtful using of words, and giving ideas for how to do that.\u00a0 My hope is that in 2012 you will find a way to add a few deeper, more thoughtful, beautiful words to your life.\u00a0 This blog can give you ideas for how to do that in ways that suit your inclinations and ability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote the first very humble, very simple post for this blog one year ago today.\u00a0 Ah yes, friends, I remember that moment well.\u00a0 There I stood (I stand to write) in my darkened home office, the monitor lighting my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,155],"tags":[953,1077,954,233,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5927"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5980,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions\/5980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}