I would like to be a writer. This probably sounds odd coming from the person who wrote the very book you’re now reading. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t count. This may also sound odd coming from the person who wrote the number-one Why Your Last Diet Failed You and How This Book Won’t Help You on Your Next One. But, no: that one doesn’t count either. First of all, it was only number one in its category: Kindle Store > Humor & Entertainment > Diet & Health > Non-Fiction > Authors in Austin > Named Charlie > Published in the Second Week of October. Second of all, it was more of a memoir than a book. And in case you still think that I’m some kind of writer, I also don’t count the eight editions of the two books on video editing I wrote.
I guess what I’m trying to say is [Charlie closes his eyes, sighs deeply] I want to be an author. You know, that distinguished individual you see pictured on the back cover of the latest New York Times best-selling novel. He’s wearing a tweed jacket, chin resting thoughtfully on his sturdy fist as he stares deep into your soul. Or maybe he’s holding a pipe. Or maybe both. I don’t care, just as long as I get to be that guy one day.
I’ve worked on one of my blogs since 2008. (Which definitely doesn’t earn me a tweed jacket.) On the surface, it looks like an ordinary, garden-variety blog. However, it’s actually just a giant advertisement for that diet book I’ve somehow managed to mention twice already. I started it back at a time where I wanted to create a fan base out of thin air and promote myself as a writer. And for the most part it worked. It got off to a great start. It became relatively popular in a relatively short amount of time. And it only cost me about forty hours a week. I hit the “Publish” button on (what I thought were) pretty good posts, five days a week, and I spent countless hours more trying to drum up a fan base. Hmmm . . . did I say forty hours a week? Feels more like sixty now that I think about it.
The blog grew, peaked, and then slowly began to slide back into irrelevance. I kept publishing (what I thought were) pretty good posts. And I kept trying to drum up a fan base.
But over the last few months, I slowly began to realize how much precious time was being poured into this particular endeavor. And I wasn’t getting any closer to even buying a tweed jacket, let alone posing in it for a dignified black and white photograph.
So today, Sunday, January 1, 2012, I make a big decision. As the old saying goes, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a twenty dollar bill at IHOP. So in that spirit, I know I must take a break from the blog in order to fully focus on my now-nineteen-year-old goal of writing a real-life, honest-to-goodness novel. I type up a draft of my next (or last) blog post and close with these words:
I’ve written over four hundred blog posts over the last several years. As we kick off yet another year (and as I look over my Bucket List again) I realize one of the many items not on the list is “Write four hundred more blog posts.”While I could do that, I’m forced to ask myself: what more that would get me? What would I say about the trials and tribulations of dieting that hasn’t been said a thousand times over? Thoughts such as these have spurred a fair bit of soul searching on my part lately and I keep coming to the same conclusion: Back to the Fridge has hit a major milestone: it’s time to move on.
I know this action will disappoint my remaining faithful readers (all three of them), but at least the road before me will now be clear. I no longer have any excuse to not achieve my goals. Nope. No excuse at all. I mean, can you think of a single excuse? Yeah, me neither.