Sixteen years ago today I started blogging, though back then we called it “online journaling.” That journal, called Tropism, evolved from a series of regular “novel dare” posts (back before NaNoWriMo started, groups of writers would get together and “dare” each other to write a novel in a month, and post about their progress. Okay, feeling old now).
I used to keep meticulous handwritten daily journals, but the online journal replaced that almost entirely. I kept updating Tropism pretty regularly for years, moving over to Livejournal when that was the big thing (oldness intensifying), and now I’m here, where I post super intermittently. It turns out I like Twitter better for short bursts (I am pretty active there, @timpratt), and back in 2013 I started doing regular private journaling again. Writing just for myself was a good idea, because of all the mysteries and secrets in my life that must never be shared with the public, lest the Ones Who Dwell Between The Lines emerge and devour you all.
But this blog still remains, for the occasional long movie review, writer-process-post, or other very occasional eruptions of essay-like structures. It’s not what it was. None of us are who we were. (Except that one guy. Change your shirt, guy.) But it’s still something.
Anyway, that first post still dwells on the web, if you want to read it. (You can even hit “forward” and keep reading, at least until the links start breaking eventually, though I can’t imagine why you’d want to.) Twenty-three-year-old me! Ha, that kid had no idea.