4,000!

Today marks the 4000th consecutive day I have blogged at Go Into The Story!

That’s right, every single day since I launched the site on May 16, 2008, I have posted something on this site. And not just something, but somethings, multiple items each day. In fact, I just checked and there are over 26,000 articles in the archives. That averages out to 6+ posts per day.

Given the fact I continue to have a career as a writer (currently working on a book commissioned by Palgrave Macmillan), a full-time tenure track position as assistant professor at the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts, teaching through ScreenwritingMasterClass.com, the unique online resource Tom Benedek and I began in 2010, I am inevitably asked two questions about the blog. The first: How do you do it?

I set aside 60–90 minutes each night as blogging time. It helps I am a fast typist and I’m able to compose content on the fly. During the course of the day and week, I track news related to Hollywood, movies, television, and screenwriting, and save articles of interest. I’ve been doing that since I broke into the business in 1987, the blogging is simply an extension of keeping up with what’s going on.

While most of the content is new, I’ve been on a two plus year ‘renovation’ project with thousands of older posts which got corrupted in the transition from WordPress to Medium. Week by week, I am working my way through the archives, fixing posts in various series such as The Business of Screenwriting, Script to Screen, and Writing and the Creative Life. It’s been interesting to discover that these re-posts actually draw more site traffic and responses than the original articles. What’s more, the number of the site’s unique visits has doubled since I moved to Medium. When I shifted here about 3 years ago, annual UVs were around 1M. Two years ago, it rose to 1.55M. Last year, 1.8M. This year, it’s on target to crack the 2M mark.

But the bottom line response to the question of how I manage to handle my blogging responsibilities is that the process has become a part of my daily routine. When I sit down at my desk around 10PM each night, I know I need to writer 6 posts and I almost always have aggregated what they will be during the course of the day.

Which leads to the second question I get: Why do you keep blogging? That answer is a bit more complicated and I promise to get into that more fully when the site has its 11th birthday on May 16, 2019, but let me just say this in the interim: I love stories. I love writing. I love movies. I love television.

In short, I am passionate about screenwriting. The actual craft of writing. Talking about it. Teaching it.

Where I am at in my creative journey, I honestly feel like this blog is a key part of my purpose in life.

I cannot being to explain the feelings I have when I receive emails from people who let me know how important the Go Into The Story has been in supporting their creative aspirations. When someone tweets that a blog post was just what they needed to read that day. When I interview a writer who tells me how much they appreciate the site.

And especially this: When someone reaches out to let me know they sold a script, landed a deal, set up a pitch, had a movie made, got representation, and that Go Into The Story has been a part of their growth as a writer…

Apart from me landing a writing gig, there is no greater personal joy at a professional level than that.

This goes back to the first few months after I sold the spec script K-9. I had no film school education. I knew one person in Hollywood. I was a complete outsider to the system when I began my career as a screenwriter. Once the initial shock of actually breaking into the business wore off, I swore I would do whatever I could to help people — outsiders like myself — have the opportunity I had. Over the years apart from meeting with people to provide advice and occasionally pass along worthy scripts to my agents, I didn’t really have a systematic way to help writers.

Then I latched onto the idea of Go Into The Story. And that has allowed me to make good on my pledge.

How long will I keep doing this? Will I keep up the streak of consecutive blogging days? Honestly, I do not know. At this point, the blog has become a kind of creative obsession. I am such a goal-oriented person, I see the number 5,000 and I can envision embracing that as my next target, however, who knows where following my bliss will take me?

I’ve rambled on enough and will have more to say on May 16th, but I am happy to take this opportunity to let myself smile just a bit at this accomplishment: 4,000 consecutive days.

My goodness. As I always say…