And So It Begins...

Hello everyone, and welcome to The Daily Eddie. With this blog, my goal is to post a new blog entry every day for the entire year. As this is the first post, it will mostly be just an introduction. I will tell you a little bit about myself, as well as the reason I started this blog and what I hope to accomplish with it.

First of all, in case you couldn't guess, my name is Eddie. I will give you some basic information about myself here, but I have a lot of posts to come, and I'm sure that information will be expanded upon in due time. I am what most people would consider a nerd or geek. My hobbies include reading and gaming. As you will see, my hobbies will have a strong tie in with this blog.

I just turned 30 this past year, and it has caused me to reflect upon my life quite a bit more than I have in the past. I have a wonderful wife to whom I've been married for 6 years. I own my own house and have a stable job. I have a large group of friends that I spend time with on a regular basis. My life is pretty good right now, and I've realized that as part of my reflections. However, in that reflection, I also realized that time is not slowing down. Growing up, and even into young adulthood, I've had ideas that I want to see realized, but I have not really made any headway into them. It's coming to the point that if I wish to see them come to fruition, I really need to get them in motion. I'm hoping this blog serves as a catalyst for doing so.

As I mentioned above, I love to read. I have ever since I was a child. I become engrossed in the stories and always want to know what happens next. They would come alive to me. I always hated it when I would get to the end of a really good book series. While the author may have concluded the series with a fantastic ending, part of me always considered it a living breathing world and wondered what the characters did afterward. Obviously, I'm aware that the series could not continue for ever, but they didn't stop my imagination from moving forward and creating new stories for the characters. After some time, I got the idea of putting that imagination to use and writing my own stories.

I've wanted to write my own stories for quite a while now, at least since I was a teenager. I've scribbled notes down about worlds and characters. I've written outlines for novels. I've even gone so far as to write whole chapters, but nothing has ever panned out. The biggest part of this is self criticism. I didn't believe I could write something that could compare to the stories I already enjoyed so much. I've now come to realize that I do have the potential to write great stories, I just need to improve my writing. And the best way to improve something is to just do it. Hence the creation of this blog.

By challenging myself to have something posted on here everyday, for a year, I know that I will be writing quite a bit. My goal is to see improvement in my writing as the year progresses. I will also be working on an actual novel this year as well, and I will be using this blog as a way to post my progression. By making it public like this, I hope that it helps hold me accountable to complete it. Even if I never get it published, I just want to finish it. That is my ultimate goal. I've had characters and stories floating around in my head for 15-20 years, and it's time they finally see the light of day.

Filling 365 blog posts with information about my ongoing writing progress, and have it remain interesting to you, the reader, would be nearly impossible. Therefore, the posts of this blog will be varied. I will, of course, post updates about my writing. In between, though, will be posts about events in my life, things I've read or watched, and just about anything else that strikes my fancy.

For example, I mentioned earlier that I am a gamer. Just like when I read, I want to create my own stories, when I play games, I want to create my own games. I have a secondary goal this year of completing my first game design. Previously, I had the same issues with game design as a I had with writing, where I didn't feel I was good enough. I'm going to set that aside this year and actually complete something. I will use this blog as a sounding board and progress report for that as well.

I can't say what each day will bring on this blog, but I can say that it will bring something. One year from now, I expect these pages to be filled with (at least) 365 blog posts journaling my year and what I've accomplished. I hope you stick around and join me on this crazy ride. I welcome feedback from you in all aspects of this blog, whether it is about specific posts or the blog as a whole.

Eddie