I Don’t Blog

So, here it is. My Very First Blog (with apologies to Playskool and toddlers everywhere).

I know. I even think it’s pretty strange that I’ve never blogged before.

Interestingly, people assume that I am a longtime blogger.  Several blogs and sites have even listed my radio show’s page on the station’s Web site as one of the top Oregon beer blogs, even though it’s nothing remotely close to a blog.

Oh, I’ve dabbled in blogging: I have “guest blogged” for a few sites, and I did have a twice-monthly beverage column at my old job which was kind of like a blog (when I pitched it, the bosses wouldn’t let me write exclusively about beer, so every now and then I would write about some other liquid to appease them). But I was a beer blogging imposter. Until now.

I’ve had my reasons for not blogging. I used to work for an Internet news organization, where I wrote about death and destruction for TV stations’ Web sites all day. After work, the last thing I wanted to do was look at a computer or write.

But that’s exactly what I did, because I was moonlighting as a beer writer — my “passion” job, which I love, even if, at the time, it often meant that I would do nothing but sit and write for more than 16 hours in a day.

Writing about something that made me and others so happy was my salve, but the daily schedule started taking its toll, until my amazingly supportive and patient husband, Mark, finally convinced me to quit the day job to pursue my passion full time. In retrospect it probably saved my life. Or at least made me a much easier person to live with.

When I left that job, though, I also left behind a built-in writing schedule. And I was surprised at how quickly I fell out of the practice of regular writing. I told myself I needed the break (and I probably did). Plus, I had many other projects to keep me busy. I launched the aforementioned weekly beer radio show and podcast (“Beer O’Clock!”) that has me working as a one-woman band — writing the show, producing it and hosting it, as well as selling the advertising to pay myself back for the airtime I purchase each month. I organize beer festivals and beery fundraisers. I teach beer classes. I’m working on books (the first one, which I was honored to collaborate on with a host of other beer writers, “1001 Beers to Try Before You Die!” is scheduled to be published soon).  And I still have my regular writing gigs for All About Beer, Beer Advocate, Celebrator Beer News and several regional publications.

But I slowly learned that writing is a muscle. And if you don’t keep it exercised, it becomes flabby. I once was a fountain of story ideas; I realized could barely muster a one. Writing even a monthly column became harder and took longer than ever before.

So, here I am. Thanks to RateBeer, I have a wonderful opportunity to get back on that writing treadmill (although I prefer to see it more as an invigorating hiking trail that takes me from beery subject to beery subject) and start really using those muscles again. I can’t wait!

If you made it this far, I thank you for your attention and patience. And I promise that I won’t often (or maybe even ever) dip into such navel gazing again.

After all, as Don Younger, the owner of Portland, Oregon’s infamous Horse Brass Pub would say, “It’s not about the beer. It’s about the beer.”

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