500th Post

Way back in the dark days of early summer, in the year 2013, I set my mind to sustaining a blog for at least a year.  Dedicated readers who don’t have a lot else going for them might recall that the original impetus for Old Road Apples was as an outlet for some old and some not so old poetry.  That I named the blog as a pun on horse turds should not be taken as an indication of my regard for poetry–quite the opposite is true, in fact. I consider it to be the absolute highest form of art, available and accessible in one form or another to anyone who embraces it.

I haven’t posted that much poetry, sadly enough, as I quickly squandered all the usable material from my youth while simultaneously devoting the lion’s share of my attention to a novel that is turning out to be not half bad–it’s got killing and a timeless rite of passage theme, which are always good things to have in a story, but thus far my efforts to include a peppy teen heroine and a sexy but broody vampire have failed.

What I didn’t expect to do was to pummel the internet with all manner of images, videos, and other non-writing, off-point things.  (By the way, sorry about that.)  The daily blogging requirement, and the familiarity I’ve developed with a core group of readers/followers has awakened by insidious, inner entertainer.  I feel a little bad about that, like I’m shirking, or like I’ve become like that creepy co-worker who sends out 40 emails a day with dumb memes and bad jokes.  Wait! I actually feel good about that.  It’s a form of sharing and intimacy–just ask my wife, who is surely sick of me yelling, “Come in here, I’ve got to show you something.”

I’m cool with it, though.  Five hundred of anything is cool, right?  I’d write more, but above and beyond the novel, there are just so many damned good blogs out there to get lost in, so many interesting people to stalk  er  follow um get to know.  So if you want more from me, write less–or write worse.

That said, I want to thank anyone who ever visited this page–the handful of old friends who stop in here now and again as well as my new “electronic” friends.  I wrote 500 posts trying to make you laugh, or get pissed off, or whatever–and have got almost 17000 hits in the process, along with over 475 followers.  Man, do I make good use that sort of affirmation!  The question, of course, is whether or not I can improve on that for the upcoming year–it should be interesting to see.  I’ve never really aspired to something tangible, let alone quantifiable, before.