My name is Mike Slater.  In January 2002, with exactly 40 days left until my 40th birthday, and more or less on the spur of the moment, I embarked upon an autobiographical writing project, publishing the results on my weblog (troubled diva).  This site is a permanent record of that project.

I decided that for every one of the 40 days leading up to my 40th birthday, I would write about an incident in my life.  Each piece had to be written on the day in question, and published on the weblog by midnight at the latest.  

Pieces were chosen each morning from a master list which was drawn up at the start of the project.  I would first use a random number generator to give me three potential candidates, and would then select one of the three to write about.  In the final week, when the precise order of the remaining pieces became more important, I abandoned this approach and chose the order more carefully.  I also made an early decision on the subject matter of the very last piece, which was therefore excluded from the process.

I allowed very few revisions to be made to existing pieces on subsequent days.  Pieces were only amended to correct spelling, grammar and factual errors.  However, in one exceptional case, I made small adjustments to a piece which I subsequently thought was somewhat insulting to the memory of a deceased family member.

If you read through this site in the order in which it was written, you may notice a certain shift in the tone and mood of the writing.  At the start of the project, I was writing in a more informal, conversational, jokey style which was more in keeping with the mood of the weblog as a whole up to that point.  Gradually, a more measured, "literary" tone developed, and the "40 Days" entries started to develop a separate identity of their own.  This was in some ways inevitable, as to start with, I was unconsciously tending to select the lighter, more humorous pieces from the list.  Therefore, you will find that the later pieces tend to deal with some of the more difficult incidents in my life.

On this site, I have given you the option of reading each entry in the order it was written, or of reading them in the order in which they actually occurred (so far as this has been practically possible).  Alternatively, you may simply select pieces at random.  Theoretically, each piece has been designed as an independent piece of writing which can be read in any order.  However, I would still recommend reading the pieces in the numbered order in which they were first written.

I found working on this project immensely challenging, in many respects.  In particular, it imposed a self-discipline upon me which did not come easily.  It required time - most pieces took roughly between 45 and 90 minutes to complete, and it was often difficult to schedule that time into my day.  I was also aware that I was opening up large areas of my life to public scrutiny, and that every day I ran the risk of committing errors of judgement, either at my expense or at the expense of others.  Wrestling with these risks was for me the most demanding aspect of the whole project.

However, with the project now complete, I strongly feel that the exercise has been worthwhile and personally fulfilling.  For me, one of the key features of the weblog genre is the "comments" facility, whereby visitors to troubled diva are able to append their own reactions to published pieces.  I found some of the comments left for me by readers during the lifespan of the project to be invaluable sources of encouragement, reassurance and motivation.  The aim of the project was always about communication far more than it was about personal self-expression or indeed personal therapy (although these aspects certainly played their part).  I have therefore been left in no doubt that on those terms, the project was a success.

I hope you enjoy these pieces.

Mike Slater
Nottingham, UK
February 2002.

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