2003: I started this blog. At the beginning I did not really have a clue about blogging or why I was doing it. I just wanted a place to write. I posted sporadically, mostly about current events, or journalism. My blog was originally titled “Policy Bunny” which was an inside joke I had with some co-workers at the newspaper where I worked and thus a pretty dumb name for a blog. (Later on the blog name changed to Fluent, and then, when I switched to this (free) site, to Fog City Writer.) Also in 2003, I took the GRE and began researching grad schools – I had wanted to earn a degree in creative writing for a long time, and I felt that if I didn’t do it soon, I’d never do it.
2004: I quit my job as a newspaper editor, got married, and began grad school in Boston. Big year, huh? My husband remained in San Francisco when I started school (two weeks after our wedding) and we flew back and forth a lot. I felt uprooted much of the time.
2005: More split life between Boston and San Francisco, more working on the MFA in nonfiction writing. I began working at a national literary magazine, and I did a brief stint as an intern at a literary agency. I wrote a lot. I traveled to Thailand over Christmas break.
2006: I moved back to San Francisco in the spring, after finishing all my MFA coursework. I missed Boston. I continued working on my MFA thesis from the West Coast for the next six months. I flew back to Boston periodically to check in with my advisor. My thesis was a travel memoir about a year spent teaching English in Bundang, South Korea. I had wanted to write that memoir for a long time (ten years!). By the end of 2006 I was awarded my degree. I have mixed feelings about the MFA experience…mostly it was positive, but the whole thing continues to seem nebulous and hard to parse. Afterwards I felt (and still do sometimes, in terms of my writing) a little bit adrift.
2007: I adopted a dog. I stopped freelancing and went back to work full time as a reporter. Thereafter followed five months of angst over when I’d find time to write and lot of work stress, with some humorous incidents mixed in. You know, your usual “can’t put on my own boots” and “locked out of my house with only kimchee to sustain me” and “can’t get my own boots off” stories. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and quit my job to return to freelancing and my own writing goals. I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month to celebrate. Two weeks after quitting my job and beginning NaNoWriMo, a bad case of tendonitis in my arm forced me to take a break from the computer.
2008: Still struggling with pain in my arm and all manner of treatments (physical therapy, medication, acupuncture) I ended up having to stop writing for a while. I stopped blogging here in May 2008. I meant for the writing break to last a month or two, but it ended up lasting for a lot, lot longer. Late in the year, you see, I had a baby boy.
2009: Things have turned quite domestic around here, and I’m just beginning to emerge from the fog of sleep deprivation and new motherhood. And well, the fog. I do live in San Francisco, after all. I’m writing again, mostly working on essays and short stories. I started blogging again here in July, and I’m starting to feel the motivation that I used to get from blogging, from reading other writers’ blogs, and from thinking about writing on a regular basis. And I’m really excited about that.
