Twenty Years of Blogging

I was sick and didn’t post on the official anniversary, and then the rest of the month pretty much got away from me, but December 5, 2025 — exactly a month ago — marked 20 years since I started my blog.  Two decades is a long time, and sometimes I can’t believe it’s been so long.  To give you an idea of how much has changed in that time, I’ve composed a list of then versus now.

In twenty years:

• I’ve gone from fledgling freelancer, to part-time, back to full-time, and finally to not freelancing at all while I focus on my own projects
• I’ve worked on the side as a part-time nanny, a house cleaner and assistant, a babysitter, and a stall mucker (and I still do the last two)
• I’ve gone through three iterations of my website
• I’ve started 11 novels, finished first drafts of 5 of those, started second drafts of exactly one, and published none
• I’ve participated in 20 years of NaNoWriMo (now DenNoWriMo in the Denver area) as a writer, 9 years as a volunteer Municipal Liaison, one year (2024) as a rogue community organizer, and one year (2025) as a co-founder of a shiny new local organization
• I’ve also started volunteering at the local doll and miniatures museum, primarily as a board member but also occasionally writing newsletter articles and other short content 

Also during this time, the market has gone through many changes.  For instance:

• Freelancers have been undercut first by lowballing writers from India, and now AI
• Freelancing opportunities that once abounded have dwindled
• Blogging has diminished in popularity, replaced by social media and video format posts

Twenty years ago, I had graduated college and started my career only a year previous.  I had worked full-time as a technical writer for nearly that entire year while freelancing on the side, before making the jump to freelancing full-time about two months earlier.  I think it was a lot easier in those days; the internet was advanced enough to offer lots of opportunities to aspiring writers, but not so advanced that it actually took away opportunity (like AI does today).

At the same time, the logistics of freelancing was harder in those days.  Before the Affordable Care Act, it was harder for freelancers to get health insurance.  The ACA was a game changer for freelancers (as well as for anyone with preexisting conditions).

And then there was the community.  Back then, MySpace was still a thing, Facebook was just starting out but hadn’t taken off yet, and blogs and forums were how writers established community.  I miss those days sometimes.  I used to “warm up” every day by reading other writers’ blogs before I got to work myself.

Finally… money, because that has to be addressed.  I don’t feel like writers’ wages have gone up as much as they should have in 20 years, certainly not enough to keep up with how much the cost of living has risen.  It’s kind of scary how much incomes haven’t kept up with the cost of things, honestly.

I’m not where I thought I would be in 20 years, that much is for certain.  I didn’t foresee getting burned out by freelancing, or struggling so much to follow my lifelong dream of writing and publishing books.  But I’m also not sorry about where I am.  I have a good life and I’m (hopefully) back on track to finish and publish some books in the near future.

I wonder where the internet, the industry, and this blog will be in another 20 years?

For funsies, here is my very first blog post!