And when it comes to the topsy-turvy world of the first draft, the law of the land is best summed up in two words: Exuberant imperfection. - Chris Baty

I spent an hour and a half under a magnifying glass today. A brave woman with springy curls deftly extracted debris from my pores. With a knife-like object she did her work while we talked skin. We talked NASA and light therapy. We talked Botox and celebrity lifestyles. It was pore ecstasy.

This morning, many hours before the extractions took place, I began a journey. I'm dedicating this month to writing. I'm committed to sending my literary agent Holly Root a draft and book proposal by the end of April. (Please, if you feel inclined, hold me to this by publicly calling me out when you see me goofing on Twitter.)

The journey started as it will end, on a laptop. A black MacBook. This machine is more than three years old and showing its age (cracks in the keyboard, it has absorbed half a cup of coffee yet operates mostly glitch-free). I woke up at 5:30 this morning itching to write. The sun wasn't up yet. I opened up the laptop and began working on the manuscript. I wrote a few paragraphs, closed the laptop and fell back to sleep.

I have notes for this book I'm writing, but I'm not looking at them. I started today with a fresh piece of digital paper. And exuberance. (Thankfully, I've completed NaNoWriMo once so I know exuberance alone won't buoy me!) I approached the page today with beginner's mind. And this evening, as I sit down to write again, I do so with a glass of wine.

There is little to choose between a man lying in the ditch heavily drunk on rice liquor, and a man heavily drunk on his own ‘enlightenment’! - Japanese Zen Master Sesso

While we're on the topic, what is it with authors and drunkenness? (For that matter, what is it with Zen masters and drunkenness?) Like you, probably, I once dated a writer. He wrote with a bottle of Jack Daniel's on the desk beside his computer. I found it romantic, reading drafts of his drunken manuscripts. His writing was actually better than coherent - it was poetic. The JD-fueled nights propelled him into riotous plot arcs and post-modern bleakscapes. Those manuscripts made me a bit weak-kneed (his smoke-drenched leather jacket didn't hurt the image).

We're all grown up now and we don't write with a bottle on the desk beside us (or do we? Speak, authors!). Now we're called upon to speak on the subjects at which we are expert. It's a dicey word for me, "expert." I avoid it when writing my introductions. Social media expert, social web guru. Of course I accept the praise when it comes, but I'm devoted to a life of beginner's mind and that's at odds with expertise. How can we cultivate curiosity and a sense of wonder when we're EXPERTS, as though it has been writ in stone? Those who have heard the label once or twice begin to believe it, begin to position themselves to be more experty.

The trick with words like "expert" and "teacher" and "guru" is this - these monikers ask you to trust someone else's knowledge more than your own. This really hit home for me during the interview with Joel and Laurens yesterday. The call was for consultants and coaches wishing to grow their businesses using social media. The interviewers asked me how listeners could use the social web to grow their businesses. The urge to jump to a pat three-part answer tingled at the base of my spine. It would have been easy to say, "sign up here, do this, increase your reach by Xing and then Y! Generate profits!" Easy, but dishonest.

Your innate understanding of the web is your best guide. Reading dozens and hundreds of blog posts won't make you a better blogger. Exuberant imperfection might put you closer to the path. A willingness to give new technologies a try will definitely put you closer to the path I'm on. Me? I don't have a perfect, expert way of doing everything. I have an imperfect, eager way of doing things. (There's research to corroborate my position.) (And there are two sides to every coin.) When an email comes in and it resonates, I respond with gentleness and curiosity. Presumably, the same way you do when you get a call.

For me, the social web called. It said, "come on! People like you are here, doing good work. Doing great work! These are your peers - join them." So I did. And do. Exuberantly. And I suppose that if the day comes I can slap my hands together and say, "my work here is complete. I'm the expert now," I'll know it's time to move on. Maybe I'll make hover boards. Or futuristic refrigerators.

Today, I approach the blank page again. With exuberance and appreciation for my imperfect pores and imperfect writing skills. I'm armed with a plan to discover and learn. (If not a bottle of JD.)

Are you with me?