Look Left, Look Right

Back in April, I did something pretty special right here in the Uninformed Opinion. I posted a piece of my creative writing here, in my blog, for anyone to read and critique. It was called Exit Ramp. It was a thundering success, and a powerful learning experience for me.

Now it's summer. And I'm moving. Moving means packing, and packing means I need distraction. Now, over the past 13 months I've kept a haphazard log of my life--my life in this apartment building, my life at the coffee shop, my life in Cedarburg. To call it a diary is disrespectful to diaries everywhere. It's more of a collection of experiences, of impressions, of mental snapshots written down.

I've been working for the past few weeks to wrangle these snapshots into something cohesive--a collage, if you will, a larger image of the last year of my life. It's nonfiction, which is strange; I don't often write nonfiction. It's coming together well. I'm proud of what it's becoming.

Maybe it won't matter to people who aren't me. Maybe it'll be something only I find interesting, or meaningful, or powerful. Maybe not. I don't know. I do know that when I published Exit Ramp, I grew. I like growing. I want to grow again.

So, in ten days' time, I will publish my collage here, in the Uninformed Opinion. As with Exit Ramp, it will only be available for a limited time, to minimize the chance of plagiarism. It'll be published at noon on Sunday, July 15, and it will be removed at midnight on Saturday, July 21.

Start anticipating! Eagerly!

Long live taking not-very-risky risks!