This is the 1,000th blog I have written since creating marjoriearonsbarron.com. These essays follow 20 years and several thousand editorials written and aired for WCVB-TV, Channel 5, Boston’s ABC affiliate. Above my desk at the station hung a framed picture of a self-satisfied, slightly overweight pussycat with the inscription, “Everyone has a right to my opinion.” Back then, the opinion was the institutional voice of WCVB-TV. These blogs since 2009 are definitely my own, and I confess to sometimes wondering whether the effort matters.

Writing is personal. I think, so I write. That is, sometimes the ideas come quickly and seem to write themselves. More frequently, I write so as to think. Setting down words helps me test my ideas and order my thoughts. In today’s complex and chaotic world, I often take days to process my feelings about issues and events. The struggle itself has its own rewards. I learn as I think things through. And, even after posting a blog, I can still be noodling it.

Every writer, from a third grader penning “what I did last summer” to a Booker Award novelist needs an editor – to praise, to admonish, to challenge, to question. My editor is my husband, Jim Barron, who augments, subtracts, keeps me on my toes, helps bring out the best in myself. As a successful published author, he, too, needs a sounding board, and I am that for him. Our discussions can be trying as well as illuminating.

But the most rewarding part of the writing process is the response from readers, whether by email, on Facebook or LinkedIn, but most especially in the Comment section on the blog itself. Naturally, statements of agreement are gratifying. But so, too, are the differences of opinion respectfully articulated, always a test of how successfully I can defend positions I’ve taken. Without feedback, writing can be like one hand clapping, and I am always grateful to hear from readers, whether pro or con.

I’m sometimes asked why I don’t accept advertisers or charge five bucks a month to subscribers to monetize the blog. That would turn my writing into work, something I have to do on a certain schedule, whether I was in the mood or not. And I don’t want to spoil it. 

So, to all my dear readers, whether you’re new or have been reading my humble offerings for years, thank you for being out there, for letting me know how you feel, where you think I’ve been right or gone wrong. And I’ll keep doing what I do until it’s time to post the gone fishin’ sign and take a pass on the frustrating, irritating, crazy, beautiful and dramatic world out there. Meanwhile, I’ll turn my attention to the one thousand first blog, whatever it will be.

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