Playwright Jack Neary launched his blog “Shards” last January with the best of intentions. As he explains in a blog post written days ago, his plan to write a blog post daily was overcome by events. Jack has permitted us to cross-post entries from his blog, so I’ve done that below. The full post and all of Jack’s other blog writing is available on his website. Here’s his first post of 2013:

Last year on this date in this blog, I proclaimed I would blog daily throughout 2012.

That was the last blog entry I made in 2012.

I’m not quite sure how that happened, although I’m pretty sure that once it got to be, like, April or May, when I became aware that I hadn’t written anything, it turned into something of a challenge to me to remain blog-free to the end of the year. I know this is warped, but…somehow…I feel I have accomplished something by doing…or not doing…this.

I was busy. I’ll give me that. In 2012, I directed middle school kids in ALICE IN WONDERLAND; directed middle school and high school kids in ALADDIN; adapted and co-directed THE THREE LITTLE PIGS for 20 kids; directed an entire family of four in THE DRAMATURG, which I wrote for the Boston Theater Marathon; directed high school kids in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING; directed more middle school kids in SEUSSICAL; directed two adults, Anne Scurria and Barry Press, in my new play AULD LANG SYNE at New Century Theatre; traveled to Virginia to see a terrific production of my play THE PORCH, directed by my friend Sara Gomez at the Winchester Little Theatre; directed about 70 adults in THE MUSIC MAN IN CONCERT for the new Greater Lowell Music Theatre, which I co-founded with Lee Grande and Phyllis George and produced in conjunction with Paul Marion and UMass Lowell; visited the Hovey Players’ wonderful production of THE PORCH; adapted and directed THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE for 20 more kids; directed more high school kids in four short plays in the fall, and more middle school kids in my LUNCH MONEY. And somewhere in the middle of all that I served as playwright at the Peterborough Players who produced AULD LANG SYNE, featuring Gordon Clapp and Kathy Manfre, directed by Gus Kaikkonen. I also think I wrote two one-minute plays for the Boston One-Minute Play Festival. I re-launched the new STAGEADAPTATIONS web site and published THE BIG SNORE, CINDERELLA, LUNCH MONEY, NIGHT OF THE BULLY and THE PORCH. And I put a great deal of energy into working, on spec, with a friend, on the book of a musical based on material by one of the late, great Broadway composer-lyricists of all time. I submitted this draft for consideration just before Christmas.

So I forgot to blog. Too many kids to direct.

This year, no promises.