Anatomy of a Blog

Anatomy of a Blog

When I mentioned in passing the other morning, that I was posting my one thousandth piece of writing on my blog, it occurred to me that this piece of information, plus a lot more than a dime, would buy me a cup of coffee at StarBuck’s, and nothing else.

After all, exactly what does one have to say that warrants all that prattling? What is the motivation? How does one keep track? How does one find a path through the maze? And who on earth cares? Besides me, I mean.

In no particular order, I seem to have a lot to say-I am never at a loss, if I am in the mood to write. Never. The motivation is internal, like the need to take photographs, collect stamps, collect coins, read books or follow the Giants, all of which I pursue.

How does one keep track? What’s to keep track of? I write, I post and I mosey on my way. There are posts from the early days which have zero page views. I value them no less than the piece on my friend Keith, who passed unexpectedly a little more than two weeks ago, a piece with more than 1,500 page views at this point in time.

However, for me it is an easy route to traverse, which I naturally do frequently, while seeking a specific post on a topic that has popped up again. The blog-map is end-for-end, in that I generally start a series on a particular topic, and then milk it until it is bone dry. 

Mark of Mark's Work

Beginning on July 17th, 2011, I posted sixteen pieces of writing in the remaining fifteen days of July, ranging from my inaugural piece about freeing myself from panic attack syndrome, to tales of Fellowship Street, and a barrage of “Military Madness” posts. 

I had been writing those army pieces in my head for forty years, and then spewed them out in six weeks in March of 2011, in an epic manic binge that has eventually become the norm. This chronicle was one of the motivators for starting “Mark’s Work.”

August of 2011 was dominated by the San Francisco Giants and “The Church of the Eternal Bleacher,” a series about baseball, in general. I also hit Fellowship Street again and nine more segments on “Military Madness.”

September was almost exclusively Ireland, where I spent twelve days with Annie, writing more than 34,000 words during those 12 manic days, almost 3,000 words per day. Er, during the wee hours of the early morning. I averaged two hours of sleep during those twelve days in Europe.

I also had a psychotic incident, during that time period, whatever that is.

Moving on to October of 2011, I feel this is the birth of the real blog, where I started a series on Christmas memories, but also posted about twenty pieces that were independent, in and of themselves. That is more or less the mode in which I operate these days, varying it to do series on say the three spiral notebooks, or my grandfather’s manuscript.

I was just scratching the surface because in November of 2011 alone, I posted 39 pieces, fifteen of them on United Auto Stores, where I worked for eight years in San Jose.

There were also more Military Madness pieces, these centered on my time in New Jersey, at Ft. Dix, for Advanced Individual Training (AIT). In December I did a second series of Christmas recollections, but the rest of the month was devoted to independent posts. 

2012 began by having me post 59 pieces of writing in the first 59 days, but then an astronomical 111 pieces of writing in the next 61 days, about half of them short-short pieces of original fiction. Just reading back that I wrote 111 pieces of writing in 61 days is pretty unsettling. Can you say “manic” but whisper it please?

During March I started to see a psychiatrist, and began writing about my mental issues, eventually adding to this series with another entitled “You Call it Bipolar-I Call it Mood Spectrum Disorder.” When Gluten-Free Mama was diagnosed in August of 2012 with kidney cancer, the next four months collectively saw twelve posts, or one every ten days. 

Hard times. Can you say depression, but not around me?

More to come