Change is a Good Thing

Two Cents by Skez

“You can make this year, this day, this moment a demarcation and declare that this will be the best year of your life, or you can continue down the same old road you’ve been down so many times before.”

–Debbie Ford (via 2010 Indiebound Eat Sleep Read Page-a-Day Calendar)

I’ve been blogging regularly since the end of January, 2003, when I launched the first iteration of this site on Blogger with a few posts about what happened in 2002 — without question (excepting the birth of our daughter), the worst year of my life. At that point, I’d spent a year out of publishing, working as a financial advisor for American Express, and had completely disconnected from the poetry scene that had been such a critical part of  my life for the five years prior.

Back then, Blogger didn’t have built-in comments; Google had slightly less than 1/3rd of the search market; and I’d never heard of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Over the seven years since, this blog has gone through several changes in focus, the most recent being on marketing and publishing, and from a professional perspective, 2009 was without question my best year ever. I’ve connected with some incredibly smart people, learned a lot about the publishing industry, and on several occasions have added my own two cents to “the conversation”.

Unfortunately, the conversation has gotten rather repetitive and stultifying, and I’ve never been a fan of blogging just for the sake of adding my own two cents — that’s what Twitter’s for now! — so in the spirit of Debbie Ford’s advice, I think it’s the perfect time for a change.

With the day job, I’m knee-deep in the subject of the conversation and the bleed-through has started taking some of the joy out of it, something I didn’t quite realize until halfway through a much-needed vacation last week. No work email, no blogging, minimal tweeting, a lot of reading (Boneshaker and Things We Think About Games were great, and I’m almost done with The Shadow Conspiracy) and spending time with family, including an impromptu trip to Ithaca, where I fell in love with one bookstore, and found a 1st edition hardcover of my favorite novel, Fool on the Hill, in another.

During the vacation, a realization that had been creeping up on me for weeks finally set in: I want need to start writing again.

And so, without further ado, pomp or circumstance, that’s exactly where I’m going to start directing my loudpoet time and energy in 2010, back into my own writing, effective immediately.

The secret to my strategy:

“Sit. Your. Ass. Down. Write. There’s the secret.”

Some of that writing will likely be public, either online or in-person at louderARTS, and most of it will likely be pretty terrible as I chip off several years’ worth of rust and procrastination. One specific goal, once I get into the groove, is to start participating in FridayFlash at least once a month; another is to hit the open mic with something new, poetry or fiction, also at least once a month.

I’ll still blog here, but the focus will be squarely on topics related specifically to writing, including reviewing books, as well as posting some of  my own work for feedback and critique. For those of you who come here strictly for the publishing industry insight and commentary, you might want to update your bookmarks as I’ll start posting that kind of content over at Digital Book World within the next week or two.

For the seven of you who stick around these parts, thanks for the support! 2010 is going to be the best year of my writing life ever, and I look forward to sharing it with you and your writing.

Happy new year!

About Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez works in publishing by day, world domination by night. Over the years he’s lived in Staten Island and South Beach Miami; served in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, US Army, and Dennis Kucinich’s ‘04 Presidential Campaign; won poetry slams, founded a reading series, co-authored a book of poetry, and self-published another; prefers Pumpkin and India Pale Ales, Buffalo Trace and Four Roses Bourbons, and Dona Paula Shiraz Malbec. He’s a devout Mets fan from the Bronx now living in New Jersey, and has a beautiful wife and two amazing kids.

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