It was exactly one year ago today that I first posted on Open Salon, and I am very pleased that I did so.  I had just finished watching Julie and Julia with my wife, and she said that I should start a blog.  I had been writing for years, mainly for my own enjoyment.  Occasionally, I would submit an article to a newspaper, and it would be printed as a guest commentary, but apart from that, I had shown my writing to very few people.  These friends would offer me compliments and encourage me to publish, but having neither the patience nor the gumption to find a reputable, effective agent, I knew I would also lack the stomach to suck up to editors as well as the time to devote to the demoralizing cycle of submission and rejection.

             So I set myself up on OS.  After a few essays on education policy and issues, I got my first comment, from Kathy Knechtes.  As I continued, I found that she, Jeanette DeMain, and Rita Shibr were reading my posts and offering encouragement.  I immediately got interested in their older posts, and then I got interested in reading the comments left by others on those posts, and then I got interested in the articles of those other people, and so on.  This all started to take away from the limited time I had for writing, but it also enriched my experience of OS.

             Just having a blog made a difference in my overall output.  Before I joined OS, I wrote a lot of poetry and stories, and perhaps an essay or two a year if I had read something in print that prompted me to take action.  But by early April of this year, I found that I had written more than a half dozen articles on education and posted them to OS.  I never received a lot of comments or ratings, but I knew people were reading.  A former student of mine, now a teacher, emailed me to tell me her principal had printed out two of my posts and shared them with her.  The principal, whom I do not know, was unaware that this teacher knew me personally.

             But ratings and comments came shortly thereafter.  In a comment to one of my posts, Jeanette congratulated me on my EP.  I didn’t know what EP stood for.  I thought perhaps it was OS slang for “Excellent Post,” but I didn’t think the piece was all that excellent.  Then I figured it out and was quite surprised.

             The EP rush wore off rather quickly, though.  Sometimes I would post an article merely because it was as done as it was going to be.  It had not taken the shape I had envisioned, but it would do.  Then I would see that it was an EP.  And, of course, there were those essays that I felt were the best pieces of writing I had ever done but never seemed to get the nod.  At any rate, I learned not to care much about aiming for that kind of recognition, though I was grateful when I got it.  It was nice enough just to have an outlet for my writing and to have such thoughtful responses and criticism from some of my fellow writers. 

            A few months ago, I discovered the Popularity tab at the top of the blog.  I had seen it but never thought of clicking it because I’m not popular.  I suppose I had nothing better to do one day, and what I discovered was a revelation.  Apparently, most of my posts were good for a couple hundred views—the EP’s sometimes for a thousand.  This is hardly a mass audience, but just a year before, only a handful of people of my own choosing would ever see my work.  What most writers truly crave is an audience, and OS had given me that.  It was a modest audience, but I found that immensely satisfying.

             I fear I am rather unambitious about developing a wider readership.  It takes a lot of hard work, though some people make it look easy.  If Scanner were merely to blog his breakfast, he would get 50 comments, but of course, I would not be able to blog a meal as satirically or eloquently as he could.

             But as I get to thinking of how other successful OSers write, I think of more than ratings and quantity of comments.  I imagine Jerry DeNuccio posting an essay about his breakfast and elevating blueberry pancakes to a symbol of sublime spiritual ecstasy.  My Esteemed Colleague Fusun Atalay would take gorgeous pictures of breakfast buffets all over Montreal and write such wonderful accompanying prose as to make me want to drive up there every Sunday for brunch.  Oryoki Bowl would compare and contrast by gender and generation the varying experiences of breakfast, making me wonder if there were any sociological significance to the fact that I had eaten scrambled eggs that morning.  If all of this sounds facetious, it should also show how all of the fine writers on my Favorites list have such varied and unique styles and voices.  My interaction with such talented people has profoundly influenced me as a writer.

             As I look forward to another year on OS and another year of writing for writing’s sake, I am deeply grateful to Open Salon for being what it is, and I am thankful for the friends I have made here.  My New Year’s Wish for all of us is that 2012 should be an inspired and prolific year.  Here’s to it.