I meant to write this in October.
That’s when the ten-year mark actually happened. Ten years since I started taking writing seriously enough to call myself a writer, or at least seriously enough to keep doing it even when it felt like a bad idea. But October came and went. Life happened. I forgot. Which feels, in a strange way, very on brand.
So here we are. A little late. Still counting it.
Ten years ago, on October 14, 2015, I didn’t sit down with a plan. There was no grand vision. No roadmap. I didn’t say, This is the beginning of my writing career. I just started writing because something in my head wouldn’t shut up, and writing was the only thing that made it quieter for a while.
Back then, I thought writing meant inspiration. I imagined moments where words would arrive fully formed, like they were being dictated by some invisible force that had chosen me for reasons that were flattering and mysterious. What I actually got instead was a lot of staring at screens, a lot of deleting sentences I had just written, and a growing suspicion that maybe everyone else knew something I didn’t.
Spoiler: they didn’t.
Most of writing, as it turns out, is showing up when you don’t feel clever. Or confident. Or particularly talented. It’s sitting down anyway. It’s writing the bad version so you can eventually find the less-bad one. I’ve written things I’m proud of, and I’ve written things I hope never resurface. Both were necessary. I didn’t know that at the time.
In ten years, I’ve learned a few things. None of them are really groundbreaking.
I’ve learned that motivation is unreliable, but habits are stubborn. I’ve learned that finishing something matters more than perfecting it. I’ve learned that feedback can sting and still be useful, and that silence is often worse than criticism. I’ve learned that some days the words come easily, and other days they feel like they’re being dragged uphill with a rope.
I’ve also learned that writing doesn’t magically make you feel accomplished. You finish one thing, and almost immediately your brain says, Okay, but what’s next? It’s a strange way to live, always reaching for the next sentence like it might finally be the one that proves something.
If I’m honest, I didn’t stick with writing because I was good at it. I stuck with it because I didn’t know how to stop. Even during the stretches where I wasn’t writing much, it was still there. Sitting in the back of my mind. Waiting. Tapping me on the shoulder at inconvenient times.
Writing has followed me through different cities, different jobs, different versions of myself. Some of those versions were more confident than others. Some were convinced they had wasted their time. All of them kept writing, even if it was messy, even if it didn’t go anywhere.
And there’s been joy in it too. Real joy. The kind of joy that creeps up on you when a sentence finally lands in a way you never expected, or a story starts to breathe on its own. The quiet satisfaction of finishing something and knowing, at least for a moment, that you didn’t quit.
Ten years is a long time to do anything. Long enough to look back and see patterns. Long enough to notice growth, even if it’s uneven. Long enough to realize that the person who started this probably wouldn’t recognize the person still doing it now—and that’s okay.
I wish I could say I celebrated properly. That I marked the day with intention. Maybe a thoughtful post written on the exact anniversary. Maybe a quiet moment of reflection. Instead, I realized weeks later and thought, Oh. That was a thing.
But maybe that fits too. Writing has never been about milestones for me. It’s been about the long stretch in between. The ordinary days. The showing up. The keeping at it even when no one is watching.
So this is me, a little late, raising a small, imaginary glass to ten years of words. To the stories that worked and the ones that didn’t. To the drafts that never made it out of a folder. To the stubborn part of me that kept going anyway. To you, for reading. And ultimately, to ten years of this wonderfully wacky blog that I’ve called home for so long.
I don’t know what the next ten years will look like. I’ve learned not to pretend I do. But I do know this: I’ll probably still be writing. Forgetting anniversaries. Second-guessing sentences. And chasing that quiet feeling that comes when the words finally say what they’re supposed to say.
The CJBuzz 