"I'm starting a blog," I tell my husband as he tries to relax after a long day at work.
When no response comes immediately, I feel obliged to add "....again."
My husband is a man of great perception and wisdom. And although I don't think he can count the number of blogs that I've started, abandoned, detonated, or lost somewhere in the Internet, he says the only correct answer that a husband can give when his wife makes that kind of a comment. "If it makes you happy, you know I support you."
I find myself amazed that I can write more books than I have fingers to count, and yet something as simple as a non-paying blog frequently stymies my attempts to maintain. It might be that I do keep busy with paying work as a freelance editor. It might be that I now have a child nearing her second birthday, which means the joys of stay-at-home-motherood to a young lady who is too smart for her own good, but tempers it well with the stubbornness of the Terrible Twos in physical form.
"We're going on a huge vacation next month, and I do want to share trip reports and the like," I explain, trying to justify why blogging and why now.
"That sounds wonderful," my husband replies. I do think he's genuinely convinced that trip report posts would be worthwhile, at least.
"And, who knows...maybe I'll work my way back into writing again instead of just editing," I state with the sudden realization that every justification I come up with for why I'm starting a blog is a better reason for why I should not start a blog. Work has been plentiful and prosperous, and the idea of walking away from good-paying work for the potential of mediocre-paying work as a writer is a silly one even to my ears.
Instead of counting off the handful of reasons why blogging is a good idea (or more importantly trying to find a handful of reasons why blogging is a good idea), I sit down and start typing.
"What's the name of this one?" he asks.
"Three Spinning Teacups!" I reply proudly.
I see him typing on the iPad, so I quickly add, "It's the number 3 and then spinning teacups, because if I spelled out three, it looked more like 'Threes Pinning Teacups', which sounded silly." Behold, I have my first subscriber and dedicated reader.
And if that's the only person who reads it, then this blog is a success. It's given me a creative outlet (again) and given my husband insight into what goes on in my head without me talking his ear off for hours on end.
"The Mad Tea Party reference is a cute one," he notes.
"And it fits," I reply. Thinking of how busy our lives are, and only getting more busy by the year, sometimes it does seem like we're teacups spinning around on the platform, brushing by each other and then spinning off to the far end of the space. It is very much a credit to the strength of our family that we're not mad.
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Alice: How do you know I'm mad?
Cheshire Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.
So what is the purpose of this blog? Again, back to Wonderland for the answer:
Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
Very clear? Good.
Updates coming? Certainly.
When? That's all up to the twists and turns of the teacup world.
Oh, and as an aside, except for the starting of the blog, none of the aforementioned actually happened. Except for Alice talking to the Cheshire Cat. I am quite certain that must have happened.
