A decade of blogging

Ten years ago today, I wrote my first blog post. When I first started Yourish.com, it was a little personal blog that nobody was reading. I wrote about my life, I had shout-outs to fellow bloggers and people who happened upon my blog. I wrote about tech. I even wrote my blog in HTML, without blogging software, for the first four years. Dave Winer and Andrew Sullivan were my blogparents. Winer never gave me the time of day. (Update: Now he did. Wise guy.) Sullivan and I had a couple of exchanges early on. Andrew wasn’t a crazy super-liberal in those days, and he wasn’t as anti-Israel as he is today. Charles Johnson was a daily read. Glenn Reynolds? I started months before he did, and found him around 9/11, just like everyone else did. Adil Farooq, blogging as the MuslimPundit, discovered me before Glenn did, via Iseema bin Laden’s diary. But it was Glenn who put me on the map, linking to Iseema, the secret Arafat phone transcripts, and my first Hulk posts, and many more. The Hulk post was published in a comic industry magazine, with greatest-ever Hulk writer Peter David himself asking for permission to publish, which I happily granted.

I’ve been writing about Jewish and Israeli issues since 2002. But the origin of my blog wasn’t Israel, or Jewish issues. That’s what this blog has turned into. It’s what I write about now almost exclusively. But it’s not why I started blogging.

The main reason I started this blog was to improve my writing. This blog helps me write something every day. The goal has always been to improve my skills, and ultimately, to get my fiction published. The fact that it’s become a soapbox from which I point out media bias against Israel, double standards from the world on Israeli behavior, and all things Jewish—well, you write what you know, and I’ve been interested in Jewish issues ever since I can remember, what with being Jewish and all. Thankfully, my parents did not bring me up to despise Judaism, unlike some I’ve written about over the years. I love being Jewish. That hasn’t changed in the past ten years, and never will.

I’ve struggled for years with writer’s block. I came out of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Workshop with a short story sale and great contacts, as well as a wonderful writer’s group. But my writing stalled, and stalled, and stalled again. Every time I thought I’d gotten past whatever it was that was stopping me and start something new, after about a chapter or two, I’d stop again. It’s like there’s a switch inside me, but it was stuck in the Off position. I’ve been working on trying to get past that block for longer than I’ve been blogging.

This spring, something finally changed. This spring, everything’s different. The switch inside me is now in the On position, and I’ve got 8500 words of my novel, as well as over 30 4×6 index cards on my Outline Board in my office. I have a three-book story arc plotted, with an opening at the end of Book Three for another story arc. You can see the progression of my Outline Board in the last few weeks. On the left is what it looked like on the first day. The right-hand picture was taken 23 days later.

This is what’s going to be taking up most of my time from now on. That’s why I wanted to get a few more co-bloggers. Because when it comes down to it, writing fiction is more important than blogging.

Over the years, this blog has been great for me. It’s given me friends, relatives (a part of the family I never knew found me via Google), a new (used) laptop (reader contributions), a job, and now, it’s helped me get to the goal I was trying to reach ten years ago. About the only thing more I could ask this blog is to get me an agent and a publisher, when the first book is done next spring. (Fantasy, YA, if any agents are reading this, and it’s an extremely marketable concept.)

No, there’s one other thing I’d really like. I’d like to have Soccerdad back as my co-blogger, but I know that’s not going to happen. Life is more important than blogging, and he’s got things to take care of.

So I think I’m in it for another ten years, but I’m working towards being able to blog on my own time—in between writing, editing, and plotting—instead of doing it before and after work.

Change is coming for me. I’m sure of it.

As for the blog? Take a look at this post from nine years ago. Compare it to today. That’s why I’m still here. When it comes to Israeli and Jewish issues, nothing’s changed.

These are all of previous anniversary posts:

First. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Seventh. Eighth. Ninth.