It’s January 29th and I’m facing my personal blog crunch time: my goal is ten posts a month and this is just the eighth. That means it’s time for me to post when I’m not feeling very passionate about any particular subject, but so it goes. It’s time to post.
I realize that no one on the planet gives a damn about whether I post or not. One of my favorite Onion articles (actually I guess this is a Clickhole article) is called ‘I Let Everyone Down’: A Blogger Apologizes for Not Posting In A While. It makes the point that no one cares about blogs and any blogger who thinks that anyone will miss his or her posts is delusional. Well, I like to think of myself as only slightly delusional, but even I know that my ten-posts-per-month goal doesn’t effect anything or anyone but myself. The article also makes fun of the minutia that usually make up the subject matter of blog posts. Again, I know this describes my blog. (I can’t even remember why I named it Chicana on the Edge.)
Still, there is value in consistency. One theory of expertise is that the people who are the best at what they do, have done it a lot. The figure was that it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to get really, really good at it. The story I heard discussed the 10,000 hours Bill Gates spent programming and the 10,000 hours any top athlete has spent on their activity. For me, keeping this blog is part of my 10,000 hours as a writer. I have no idea how long it takes to hit 10,000 hours and it’s possible that, at the age of 48 and a half, I hit my 10,000 hours years ago. In fact, I’m sure I did because I’ve spent huge amounts of time writing since I was 11 years old.
So thank you for visiting me here as I practice my art. I appreciate every click this blog gets. Watch this space for two more posts in the next two days.