In June of 2009, I decided to start a blog. “I didn’t have any fixed goals,” I explained to my first subscribers, fifteen months later. “All I knew was that I’d discovered some cool commonalities between success as a competitive sailor and becoming a published author, so I named the blog Where Books Meet Boats.” (Read more about the first 101 posts.)
I wasn’t yet committed to weekly posts, but themes had already appeared: Why I Blog, Imagination, Online Friends, Character Management. Over the past decade, I’ve learned a lot about both writing and sailing just by sharing my thoughts with you.
There have been some rough patches. In 2015, I temporarily Killed the Blog, losing the entire database. I was able to recreate most of the archive, so the best posts from the first six years live on… but all your comments were lost, and total post numbers are not nearly as impressive as they should be.
To celebrate a decade of blogging, I took a fresh stroll back through the archives to weed out 10 of my favorite posts. My takeaway? Specific topics have evolved, but the name is still a great match. See if you agree.
P.S. I often get asked how I maintain a weekly posting schedule. The simple answer: I make it a priority. And the best reward is comments from readers like you, so please share your thoughts below or send me an email. Thanks for the continued inspiration, and here’s to another ten years!
Where Books Meet Boats
On the eve of the Rio 2016 Olympics, I pondered the influence of those off-camera.
At the end of 2014, a discussion of Game of Sails taught me about myself.
April, 2016: The origin story of Ferry to Cooperation Island.
February 2016: Sailing is such a speciality that it requires its own vocabulary.
Summer 2013: A contemplation on Type A personalities, and their opposite.
February 2012: No diaper changes required.
December 2015: A return to freelance work reminds me of Olympic campaigning.
March 2012: Stories—like wind—have personalities related to what caused them.
September 7, 2011: “The blessing and the curse of imagination is: it doesn’t listen to me.”
March 2011: An attempt to explain where I get my ideas.
