It’s been a long road, but we’re finally here. The last few months have been difficult ones, as I’ve cast off the shackles of conventional living (i.e. making money, eating food, etc.) and settled down to doing what I love most: writing. And, of course, periodically gnawing at my notebooks since due to the aforementioned lack of money I have had to embrace the aforementioned lifestyle of eating things that aren’t food.

In the end, this has culminated in the journal that you now see before you, which is filled with magic and mystery and Twitter feeds.  There isn’t much here just at present, as I’m still trying to wrap my head around not having a 9 to 5 (yes, concerned relatives, I am aware of the state of the economy), but there will be more to come in the next few weeks as I’m able to get a better sense of what this monstrosity is that I’ve built and how I plan to use it.

You can expect, if nothing else, updates on any projects that I’m undertaking, the occasional bit of newsworthiness I feel inspired to share, some general drivel about life and how much of it seems to be falling apart for me at any given moment, and certainly some exclamations of wonderment and horror when something actually gets published, along with any requisite links or information that may lead you to reading said material.

My sincerest thanks and heartfelt gratitude to all who have been so supportive and optimistic and told me that dooming myself to the life of a writer was a good idea.  I’m looking forward to dragging you all down with me.

But joking aside, it has been a hard year, one in which I lost a wife, lost friends to moves, discovered and lost love, was separated from friendship, and found myself thrown into new circumstances with such frightening rapidity that I couldn’t begin to figure out the old ones before they’d already passed. And there’s yet more to come in the months ahead, daunting things I know I have to do, others I’ve only half considered, and still more I haven’t even anticipated. So this site, this thing that I’ve spent the last few weeks working hard to create and understand, is my unnerving, slightly awkward, caffeine-spawned cry of battle, a signal to both myself and the world that I’m going to do the work that my heart has long told me needs to be done.

To all my friends, and one in particular to whom I can’t say this personally the way I should, thank you for your belief in me and for the inspiration of who you are. It would have been a worse year without you, and may 2011 be better for us all.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and happy birthday TFMA!‘

[This post originally appeared at theflyingmonkeyapparatus.com.]