ANNE

It’s been nearly two months since I’ve written a post.  For those of you who began following this blog recently, I’m Vince’s mom.  He and I co-wrote this thing for a year.  I had been posting every other day for over a year.  He sent me hand-written pages and I typed them and posted, alternating between his content and mine.

When Vince was released from prison, I checked with him every other day: “Do you want me to write a post?” and he’d reply, “No, I’ve got it covered.”  I asked him several times to give me a couple days’ notice if he wasn’t going to post on a given day.

I winced at his typos and sloppy spacing.  But Breaking Free was his blog too, and he was really unloading some powerful content—stuff he had not been free to write about in prison, some heavy experiences and emotions.

It was kind of a nice break for me.  Vince wrote that he wanted to take his writing in a different direction, and I started thinking about what else I might blog about eventually—maybe something fun like travel.

I felt blindsided when I read his post in which he announced that he was done with the blog—right now—for personal reasons.  I have no idea what the personal reasons were.  When I tried to discuss it with him he said, “You weren’t writing anything anyway.”  Aargh.

I was pissed.  I was hurt.  He hadn’t given me a heads up, so I had no content ready.  And when there’s no posting on a blog, readership falls off quickly.  I had invested over a year of my life in conceptualizing what the blog would be, figuring out the technology, keeping it fed, and getting the word out about it.  I watched as the readership stats shriveled with each passing day of inactivity.  It was like sitting by the bedside of a dying loved one, patting his/her hand, and feeling powerless to do anything.

I was waiting for inspiration (and time) to write.  Then I read one of those Facebook quotes—it was by Albert Einstein or Fred Flintstone or a maybe a fortune cookie—something like, “If you wait for inspiration you wait in vain.”  That snapped me out of my procrastination and resentment.  Hey, whatever works.

Co-blogging with Vince created a natural cadence, a tension, and a story arc that was a pleasant surprise.  I’m not sure how it’ll go with just me, but we’ll find out.