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1) Change is constant. After a year and a half and more than 250 posts, The Protojournalist storytelling project has reached its finish line. This will be the last Protojournalist post — under my aegis.

2) Exploration is good. The experiment began on June 14, 2013. It was my idea — to explore new ways of storytelling in the midst of all the variegated and fast-morphing forms available nowadays. The project, as I wrote in that initial post, was "dedicated to the exploration of story — auditory, interactive, visual, written. Story as , as chart, as poetry, as , as , as , as sound, as , as something we've yet to imagine." My editor says we built up a sizable audience.

3) There's more than one way to tell a story.Because of the open-mindedness of NPR, I was able to check most of the above challenges off the list. And I was allowed to delve into different storytelling forms in ways few others ever get to. I the story of a blind man who had worked in the White House and was hoping to adopt three blind sons; typed an story to the National Security Agency; concocted an Do-It-Yourself All Purpose Presidential Scandal Story; offered up the story of chef Paula Deen in a ; pasted together a political story as a ; explored in a story about speed-reading; list-storied a number of things, including a Of Beer Summits, Named After Presidents, In America's Past and With Freeways Going Nowhere. Through it all, I tried to reflect the eclectic and electric nature of America, with its many strong voices. The one constant: the story.

4) Sometimes a story wants to be told a certain way. I ranted and delivered a cliche-riddled defense of . I provided — and — of American weather. And I raised a queue of questions: and and and

5) We are all storytellers. Whenever possible, I asked for help from NPR's amazing community of LURVers — Listeners, Users, Readers and Viewers — to tell the story. And LURVers really responded. Projects within the project included recording How It Sounds To Be , or or and telling and puzzling and wondering and contemplating the life of Americans abroad in and distilling the news into .

6) Space wants to be shared.Other original voices joined me to create stories as a , a , a with soup recipes; a . LURVers like lists.

7) It's not about me.One of my favorite experiments was in which YOU were both the co-writer and the main subject. Only at NPR, with its amazing team of developers, could I — and you — have gotten away with such a strange venture.

8) There are new worlds to discover. The Protojournalist unveiled — an info-gathering game we devised (at the suggestion of Scott, my supportive and creative editor) for drilling a little deeper into a subject that intrigues us.

9) Permanence is temporary. Along the way I was reminded that what you write on the Internet is forever — and fleeting at the same time. Some of my more experimental stories have disappeared because of link rot or some other digital disease.

10) ... with a little help from my friends. For my next space exploration, I will be launching NPR History Dept., a blog about America's past. NPR History Dept. was unknowingly suggested by several dear, and brilliant, friends of mine — Jamie, Mac, George and Jan — who teach, or have taught, history.

Above all, the new project has been inspired by my two ever-amazing sons, Stone and Holt, who in their brief, beautiful, meteoric lives, were intrinsic and intense students — and teachers — of history. With them and with you, I will venture into the future — and into the past — using what I learned as The Protojournalist.

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