Twelve hours ago, I crouched determinedly over a fire ring. After a full night’s rain, the morning had dawned clear and blue and sunny (for the time being) but a chill still clung to the lake like a mist. I was in charge of our morning fire. Armed with tissue and little bits of mostly-dry tinder, and shavings of wood, I lit the little bits on fire. (I must confess, I’d never done this before). I was determined to do it the old-fashioned way, without accelerant, but I could only go by feel. I blew on the little flames when I shouldn’t have, at first, but fortunately they didn’t go out.
As the fire grew bigger, I added larger and larger pieces of wood, until at last it crackled merrily and blossomed into a real, honest-to-goodness campfire. That was when we plunked on a few big logs and settled in for a nice long camp morning.
Of course, there was a canoe adventure too.
***
Twelve months ago, I hunched determinedly over my laptop. After years of trying to keep up a blog, my recent conversion to carnivory had given me a whole new type of energy (for the time being) but doubt still clung to my mind like a cobweb. I decided to post every day in a little blog called Batfort. Armed with my thoughts and writing abilities, I started writing daily posts. (I must confess, I was terrified at first.) I was determined not to miss a day, but still had to come up with a post, so I went mostly by feel. I wrote some subpar things at first, but I didn’t give up.
As the blog grew bigger, I wrote longer and more creative posts until at last it resembled somewhat of a real blog. After the 6 month mark it even started picking up honest-to-goodness views. Batfort has picked up momentum and has settled in as a daily habit.
Of course, there are online business ideas too.
***
Friends, the goal has been reached. Back a year ago I decided to follow the advice of Mike Cernovich and post in a blog every single day for a year to see what would happen. To force myself to publish something, no excuses, daily.
I committed, and that commitment has paid off. I proved to myself that I could do it, even through new jobs and moves to entirely different cities, work trips and camping trips, illnesses and internet outages.
There were no restrictions on the content that I posted, and I decided not to care about the quality of any of the posts–only that they were published. I’ve had to work through feelings of looking-stupid-on-the-internet because writing takes time to refine, and ideas as well.
But with that, over the past year I’ve become a stronger writer, more confident in myself. My content has expanded greatly–so much politics at first–into all sorts of things that I’m interested in. I have a better idea of what I like to write about, and what I think, and what my strengths are.
Aside from the decision to go full carnivore (which was the best decision I’ve made in the past several years), I’m so glad I committed–really committed–to posting daily on Batfort. There were difficult days, and I still haven’t settled on a daily routine for getting these things done, but I have built something that I’m proud of, something that I can keep feeding wisps of kindling to so that it becomes a friendly, crackling fire.
Even though my year is over, I have no intention of letting this Batfort flounder. I’ve trained myself to the habit of posting every day without fail, so I will not fail for the time being. But I’d like to turn Batfort into something a little better, give it a little more coherence and care.
I’m still working out exactly what that looks like, but you can bet that I’m working on coaxing my tiny flicker of words into a steady flame.
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