Goodbye to 2007

You may be wondering why I would be doing a Goodbye to 2007 on December 27th instead of the 31st. It’s because today I sent out the last of this year’s issues of my newsletter, Doing It Write. I said goodbye in the newsletter and thought I’d do the same here. The goodbye’s not permanent, though. It’s really an adios to Year Number 8 for Doing It Write. Hard to believe I’ve been writing and publishing the newsletter for 8 years. I bet those subscribers who’ve been with me since the beginning are as astounded as I am.

But today was the last issue for Year 8. The next time subscribers hear from me, we'll be starting Year 9.

Eight years of 52 issues each. A contest every week; a conference, workshop or event every week. Articles, websites, and columns. Guest columnists and contributors. And, oh, the wonderful emails I've gotten. And the people I've met; the friendships formed.

When I first started Doing It Write, I wrote long columns. Then a true friend wrote and told me to cut back, the articles were too long. So I did.

I used to house the archives for Doing It Write on my website until they began to number into the hundreds and it was becoming unwieldy to maintain all those pages of articles. I also used to keep links to all the websites I'd found on my website, but those too began to be too many (you can do the math – eight years of 52 newsletters with two websites per issue) and it was impossible to keep up with broken links or websites that disappeared. So I had to take those down, but I still keep the contests and events online.

And I still love hearing from readers and welcome guest columnists.

I've learned a lot over the last 8 years.

I hope my readers have, too.