Writing for a Living

I've been blogging now for a month short of four years. It all started when I met a man I instantly thought was wonderful and who later turned out to be not so. I wanted to document the travails of dating when one is old over 50. This blog has turned into so much more than that.

All along, I've blogged for the sheer wonder of sharing words, sharing thoughts. I've blogged for the love of words, and seen my writing improve as a result. There was never any pay, except when someone said to me, "I love what you wrote today!"

I never had hundreds of daily readers. I think the most I had was 45 or so, when The Gardener told every woman he knew about being featured in my blog. (Now there was a man with too many women and too little time!) Nowadays I average just over 30 hits. I know the identity of about half of them. There's a whole contingent in North Carolina who read regularly and I don't have a clue how they found me or who started passing my URL around.

<Random Thought On>
Is that the on-the-bathroom-wall-with-magic-marker of the future? Will we write URLs instead of "Sally loves Bobby"?
<Random Thought Off>

I recently started a second blog. It's still lying in its crib, but as it learns to walk, it will contain posts about Youngstown, maybe some posts about our clients, posts about writing and Web stuff. It will not contain personal stuff—the stories I love to write about my grandchildren and children and cats and the development of this wonder-of-a-relationship with the Jazzman. Just the professional stuff, so when someone offering a freelance job wants to see writing samples, I can point out that content.

But still, there's no pay for that.

But (she said, grinning), last night I got my first task assignment from the new boss to write a blog post. Yea! Me, a blogger for pay!

Can I say, "I have arrived"?