I’ve wanted to have a blog for years. To have a platform to share my thoughts with the world; to build up a cool and diverse archive of posts on a variety of subjects; to follow in the footsteps of my all favorite authors who have blogs of their own, that they use to keep their fans updated on upcoming book news and whatnot. Somewhere I can post for posterity, outside of the disposable content mills that make up modern social media.

And then I finally created jessepirnat.com. I’ve had the means to start my ideal blog for almost 3 years now… So why haven’t I done it yet?

I don’t know why I’m so drawn to the idea of blogging. Even though I practically grew up on the Internet, I don’t think I ever specifically followed any blogs. (No, Tumblr in its heyday doesn’t count.) I’ve followed plenty of websites over the decades—Pokémon and Bionicle fan sites long dead and forgotten—but never just the site of some guy talking about himself.

And now, blogging is practically dead too. Another casualty in the metamorphosis from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 and beyond. The Internet is mainstream now, but people stick to their walled-garden social-network mega-cities, while a handful of bloggers stay outside in their World Wide Wild West and refuse to get with the times.

Somehow, that makes the idea of blogging all the more appealing to me—maybe even a little nostalgic. It’s a side of the Internet that I missed my chance to explore at its peak, but it’s one that I think I would have felt right at home in.

These days, I actually do follow a few blogs. First and foremost among them is the website of my good friend B. A. Baker, or Thedude3445. Their blog is the shining pinnacle of everything I would want my own blog to eventually be. Hundreds of posts written across multiple years, covering such an awesome variety in topics and life experiences (and of course, writing project updates). It provides such an excellent snapshot into B. A. Baker’s mind, and for some reason I think that’s really cool? You can’t get this kind of experience on any other kind of website.

So, back to the question I posed before. Why haven’t I put that much effort into my own blog? Why have I left this site to languish for years, thinking all the while about how much I wished I wasn’t doing exactly that?

I don’t have a good answer.

Maybe part of it is feelings of inferiority. Do I really have that many interesting things I could blog about? Do I do enough with my life that I could have that many unique experiences to blog about? Does that actually matter? Does my life need to be interesting? No, I think it doesn’t.

Maybe part of it is intimidation. Thedude3445 has a veritable mountain of posts (over 200!) on their blog, and I have nothing. How could I ever turn my dinky pile of nothing into a beautiful mountain like theirs? Except, it literally took them 4 years of effort to build up from their own pile of nothing. If I put in the same effort, I can do the same thing.

Probably a big part of it is the same thing that stops me from being able to follow through on most other writing projects I say I want to take on. The novels I’ve been working on for years planning on eventually working on for years. Procrastination, executive dysfunction, whatever you want to call it.

But I’m tired of letting those excuses win. It’s time to finally commit to some modicum of consistent effort. I vow, here and now, starting with this very post, that I am going to blog a lot more frequently in the coming year. Whether it’s project updates or general reflections on life, I am going to make my thoughts known to all two or three people who will ever read them. (On that note, thanks for reading this, you two/three. You know who you are.)

So. Can I write a new blog post every month for the foreseeable future?

Betteridge’s law of headlines says ‘no,’ but common sense says ‘yes.’ Of course I have the physical capability to write a thousand or so words on any random subject once every thirty days. I do it all the time already in the form of texts and messages to friends, or even just in thoughts I don’t write down. Gather those thoughts together and group them by subject matter, and (in theory) you get a deeply personal and insightful series of snippets that probably paint me as a pretty weird dude.

Now it’s time to share that weird dude with the world.