For me (and maybe you too)

I have always been driven by strong creative impulses, a passion for conceiving, forming and discovering that first came to life during endless Lego construction endeavors and in elementary school art rooms. Later, I fell in love with fiction writing and dreamed of first being a novelist and then a screenwriter, yet somehow wound up with a journalism degree.

While I previously spent many years as an entertainment writer and sports columnist, however, my writing dreams never amounted to much. Instead, my creative predilections have led me to a career as a freelance graphic and web designer with a wedding and portrait photography business on the side that has been growing and taking shape for almost three years now.

For someone who loves creating, this all sounds like the ideal job description. And yet, as I found myself in the inevitable state of reflection with the end of another year looming this past month, it really struck me just how much a creative career can suck the joy out of a person's creativity. Ironic, huh? When everything I'm creating carries the added weight of needing to impress a client enough to help pay the mortgage and help feed my family, it's difficult to enjoy the process the way I once did.

I know it sounds like I'm complaining, and I suppose I am in many ways (my wife agrees, for what it's worth), but all of this is to lay the foundation for why, more than three years after learning about blipfoto, I have finally started my own 365 project. As I began to wonder how I could rediscover that intoxicating bliss that used to so naturally come over me when I'd be writing a short story or snapping a dozen pictures of the sun dancing off a water glass in my kitchen, I realized I needed to find a project that was just for me.

So that's what this journal will be. I have a couple other ideas as well that I am pretty excited about, but this was the easiest one to get up and running, and there is something positively poetic about starting it on New Year's Day. Hence, the photo choice for this first entry.

Granted, this pic is nothing special, but it is very fitting. Besides, I refuse to begin the project by convincing myself that each upload needs to be a masterpiece. Ain't gonna happen. Instead, I just want it to be fun, and if I improve as a photographer while becoming more disciplined along the way, it will bear fruit. (And, bonus, I get to write some too.)

So this post, and the 364 that will hopefully follow, is for me. But if you're reading this, then I guess it's for you too. I can share.