Journaling and Blogging

It's an interesting, two-sided exercise in which I find myself engaged these days -- writing in my journal, longhand, each morning for about an hour, and ending my day by blogging on my computer for at least that long. Sometimes the journal entry gets transcribed and revised as the blog, but not always.

It's a bit like standing with one foot in one century, the other in another. One medium -- the journal -- feels archaic, anachronistic, even. The other is "cutting edge," or so I'm led to believe (although there is some debate as to the future of "long-form" blogging).

Blogging is innately public; the writing has "followers," as well as people who happen upon it during Google searches. My journals end up on bookshelves, or in mildewing cardboard boxes in the basement of my sister's hundred year old brownstone in Brooklyn, New York.

My hope, ultimately, is that all this daily reflecting (navel-gazing, if you will) will eventually lead me to write that dazzling piece of long fiction that I know is in that navel somewhere. I've unleashed the demons before -- the proof is somewhere in the aforementioned damp basement. It's time to release the beast one more time.

FINALLY!

You may have an opportunity to be published today. Whether you are writing the next "War and Peace" or a simple letter to the editor, people are interested in what you have to say. You may spend too much time double-checking your thoughts and over-editing yourself, though.

When I saw my daily horoscope on Facebook this morning, I paused. I recalled those days long ago, when I used to make copies of my short stories, following the guidelines I learned about in books I bought for that purpose. I would send them out to various magazines, with the obligatory SASE inside, fully expecting to have it boomerang back to me in a month or so.

Now, I am published each and every day. And so is my friend, Kami, a brilliant writer. Not to mention Steve Lazar, a champion of young learners in the Bronx, and my former students, Jack Kyser and Shipnia Bytyqi. I can read Gayle Saks or Susan Dreyer-Leon, if I want to. And I look forward to anything new by Max Terry.

So yes, maybe there is a big, fat elitist difference between “writing” and “blogging,” but you know what: I like being a blogger, and I like reading bloggers.

There. I said it.

And I didn’t over-edit, either.

CONGRATULATIONS: YOU'VE CREATED 100 BLOGPOSTS!!

So what’s up, blogger.com?? No confetti? Nobody jumping out of any cakes?

Not even an automated email, congratulating me on the accomplishment?

You may think it’s no big whoop, blogger.com, but to my mind 100 posts is a pretty major milestone. And there’s been some good stuff put up on the old Navelgazer site, too, my friends. I mean sure, not all of it is Joseph Mitchell, but there have been a number of musings that make me pretty proud.

Look at how far I’ve come, blogger.com: You remind me of it yourself, each and every time I log on. In 2009, when we first met, I posted three measly entries. In 2010, our first full year together, I managed 11.

Now, in 2011, my love for you has blossomed into a daily habit. I have not missed a day of togetherness, having posted all 100 days of the calendar year thus far.

That’s a big deal, blogger.com. There are actual human beings out there with whom I haven’t been able to maintain a relationship this long or this consistently.

So I ask you again, blogger.com: What’s up? Where is the love?