I worry a lot that however I write this intro it’s going to come off sounding cheesy, over-done, under done, too sappy, not sappy enough, or worst of all; bland. What if the grammar police come after me and demand I go to punctuation jail? What if my adverbs aren’t strong enough, my run on sentences win marathons, and I can’t place a comma, apostrophe, or semi-colon properly to figuratively save this blog’s life? What if my thesis statement is misplaced? What if you’re not allowed to mention thesis statements in blog intro posts? What if a passing editor skims through this and laughs so hard she snorts coffee out of her nose and then calls over all her editor buddies to come read this intro so they can all cackle at it together? Every terribly indented, grammar splattered, spelling error ridden sentence….
Frankly, I’m terrified this is all going to sound horrible and also terrified that I am going to burst out of my skin like a sun warmed grape IF I DON’T WRITE ABOUT THE THINGS. What things? All of them.
I want to write about books so bad I’ve been scratching notes on post its for months, starting posts and then hiding them away, thinking (thinking and thinking) over and over again about what I’d say, what I’d do, and what beautiful, lovely, wonderful, adventurous, emotional, and poignant book I would write about first, last, or in the middle. I am dying to talk about books. I am dying to post pictures. I am dying to write better or write at all because oh my god, why isn’t everyone writing everything about Around the World in Eighty Days? Why isn’t Jules Verne being talked about day AND night? I am longing to not be terrified of doing badly, of slowly talking myself out of even trying once again, or even worse/better doing WELL.
What happens if I do well? What happens if my (really) average writing actually improves? What happens if I find that maybe I could write about all the books I love/hate/find/have and the world didn’t implode on itself, I didn’t internally combust, and in a really stunning turn of events, people enjoyed reading what I wrote? Why, I don’t know what that would be like, because I have to do the thing in order to experience any of those things I just typed out. The horrifying and stunning conclusion that many a philosopher and wise teacher has arrived at through the ages : you must do the thing to experience any of the things.
So here we go . This is terrifying. I am going to do the thing to experience the things.
Welcome, thank you for being here.
Enjoy.