Happy Birthday to All of Us!

Without You, I'd Just Be Shouting at the Sky

Tomorrow, Day By Day turns one year old! I’m including this picture of me and the dog mostly because Pip is also just about a year old. He was born one week before I started Day By Day. Coincidence? I’m also including it because you all seem to respond positively to this big ‘ol filthy dummy. (And by dummy I mean, well, dummy. He’s super adorable but really doesn’t have much going on in the old noggin’.)

Anyway, I digress.

I began this little subscription journal waaaaaay back in November of 2022 for two primary reasons. I wanted a user friendly place to launch into a daily NaNoWriMo project, where interested readers could get essays sent directly to them, not miss anything because of ads and algorithms and for me to get an idea of what my readers actually like reading.

The second reason was because I was slowly moving away from Facebook and Twitter anyway, and wanted to give this forum a try.

And boy, did you all respond! I did not expect that at all!

In the year that we’ve been active, Day By Day has published 106 essays and articles. We’ve written, in no particular order, about parenting, history, libraries, philosophy, mortality, music and rocks. So many rocks!

Just for fun, here’s a link to the most popular essay and the least popular essay over the year in terms of views.

The most popular was the second installment in our series about meeting The Warning. I guess you all like rock and roll! Here’s that story -

The least popular was the essay about Cirque du Soleil! I guess you don’t like THAT kind of music! Here’s that story -

Many of the essays were inspired by YOU! And going forward, I hope you continue to give us suggestions. In fact, reading your comments is my favorite part of all this so keep them coming. Tell us about yourself, what’s been your favorite, what have we missed, what’s your favorite band, book and bug?

Over November, like I did last year, I’ll try to produce a few more essays than my normal pace. Our second rocks field guide will get a release date so we’ll talk about that. We’ll announce the winners of our Name the Rocks contest. In December, we have a big music/concert thingy that’s we’ll be writing about. And with your help, Little Bean and I can continue to grow this community. I doubt I’ll ever leave Facebook for good, but our activity there will decrease as our audience here increases.

So go tell a friend as well! Anyway, that’s it for today. For those of you about to step into National November Writing Month, good luck! If you’re going trick or treating tonight, grab that sugar my little imps.

I’ll keep writing. You keep reading. And we’ll keep on keeping on together. Sound good? Let’s go!