Late to the Game

I've been out of touch the last (almost) two weeks and I have no excuse other than the fact that I got totally overwhelmed by holiday preparations, family stuff, and life in general. I promise that I thought a lot about blogging but that old, trite observation that the more you do something, the easier it gets is so true. After missing a few days of blogging, it seemed harder and harder to pick the pen back up.

While I was in my 2 week blogging funk, I missed an amazing post by my personal Queen of the blogosphere, Mel. In her Occupy Blog Street post, she talks about how 99% of the bloggers out there never get recognized for their work, their writing in any significant way. She implores us, the 99%, to

Occupy Blog Street. Sit down on your blog and write something today. Hit publish. Read everyone equally — mixing the 1% and 99% together to create a single entity. Ignore “best of” lists. Declare 2012 as the year of telling YOUR story and then tell it. (Though you may only get to December 21st because that’s when the world will officially end. We’ll all understand if you miss blogging those last few days of the year since none of us will be around to read those posts.)

Since I missed Mel's original post, I want to say here and now that I am that 99% and I have been guilty of worrying too much about the responses a post got or didn't get. I have worried too much about what kind of stats my blog had and why certain writers had more followers than me. 2012 will be my year. It will be a year of writing for myself, writing from my heart. I will do my level best to write every day and, if I miss a day or two, I will forgive myself and jump right on back into writing.

In an effort to expand my horizons and to truly mix the 1% and the 99%, I need help from each and every one of you. I need recommendations. I need names and links to posts of yours I might have missed out on and I need blog recommendations from you. Now, your personal posts don't have to be something overwhelmingly jaw dropping or inspirational. I just want it to be a post that means something to you (hint...any post on your blog). And, the blog recommendations...please point me to a favorite of yours. It could be a blog with 2 followers or more than 100. I promise I will check out each and every post and each and every blog you recommend.

Bring on the linkage!