I was glad to hear that Douglas Bowman intends to start blogging more again. His StopDesign has long been one of my favorite blogs. For good reason it seems, because right off the bat he wrote something that struck a cord in me.

We have a nice New Years' tradition. With two other families who we've known since before we became families, we journey to Tucson and (without malice) take over a resort or hotel. The kids run wild; the adults eat and drink and talk and pretend not to notice the boys are lobbing water balloons over the balcony railing again. We get to know a lot of security folks on a first name basis this way.

This year I spent a good part of the time holed up in our room, ironing out the wrinkles from this blog...

A blog without comments is a lonely thing. Somehow in switching from Movable Type to Drupal, probably while mucking around in MySQL with inexperienced hands, I lost all the comments on this blog.

The sadness I feel makes me realize how important the people who comment here have become to me. Our conversations—our relationships—have been lost, and what's left are only my own words, alone. A conversation of one.

After a day or two of thinking it over, I realize that saying "the process and mechanics of writing don't matter" isn't a very helpful or illuminating statement. Yes, the how, when and where of writing is not very important. Fascinating, maybe, especially with eccentric writers (but who's ever heard of one of them?), yet ultimately inconsequential. But there is more.

I just stumbled across a discussion on "The writing process" on Roger Johansson's blog. I love discussions about writing, particularly when I don't want to write, and Roger's blog is always interesting. A lot of people responded with thoughtful details about their own writing processes. For other writers, this is fascinating reading. Of course, I started thinking about my own writing process, and I came up with some surprising conclusions.