Current mood:	hopeful
Entry tags:	metajournaling, restless heart, the past, who am i, writing

What is it worth?
This journal is now over six years old. It started on Sept. 2, 2001.
  Over the past several months, I've been thinking about the value of my journal. What I mean by that is not that I'm wondering what use it has but that I'm wondering what might be the material value of the things I've written.
  I realize that this will seem to some as a conceited or mercenary thing to wonder, but I do wonder it, reasonable or unreasonable as it may be. And having wondered, I must ask the questions I have, so that if, perchance, someone else has the answer, I might be edified. Right or wrong, I have wondered these things.
  I don't want to waste my time producing things that have so little value to others that nobody would be willing to pay for their production. And the production of these essays and other entries does consume an appreciable amount of time, i.e., it does fit the criteria of being work. And the worker is worthy of his hire. I realize that many of the things I have written in this journal have had a positive effect on someone's life. I know because I have had people comment saying that it is so. Writing is work, and it might be possible for me to be paid for this work, and some of the things I've written have been of benefit to someone.
  Not recently, but earlier in the year, I set and met a goal for myself of posting at least one entry every day for a whole month. While not all of the entries have been good entries, I have managed to post one real entry every day for the space of a whole month. I reason that being able to produce one entry every day for a month (and having at the end of the month more than one topic awaiting expansion into an entry) means that I could write a daily column for some entity in exchange for a monetary benefit. I have the means to produce writing on a consistent basis, if I have a motivation to do so.
  Having decided that it seems not unreasonable that I might receive some compensation for my works, I am left with the question of how to do this. I have not been approached by anyone wishing to publish my work in their publication, so I don't plan to look for the daily column outlet. And I'm not in any way suggesting that I am thinking of starting a commercial commentary site. I am not seeking to transform what I do here on my journal into a paycheck. I am not going friends-only and locking out people who don't wish to pay for my rantings, quite apart from the fact that I could by no means do that on LiveJournal. No, I think the best route for me, if it be that my writings here have any material value, is to publish a compilation of the best of my writings. I am considering a collection of my best writings.
  I am not the person to decide what the cream of my crop is. After all, as the author of these writings, I am probably likely to consider them in a better light than anyone else, being dissatisfied with very few of the serious entries. Because of this, I need outside opinions. I need your help. Please tell me about your favorite entries I've written. Please tell me if there is any entry that would improve your chances of buying a collection if you saw it within a book in the store. Please tell me which entries you think should be in a paperback collection.
  Please tell me whether you think I am completely misguided in thinking that there is material value to the things I've written here in my journal over the past six years.
Those who help with this will receive a mention on the acknowledgments page of the book.