Life is a curious thing. Each of us has a completely different adventure, yet we all face similar challenges, experience wonders, and are given amazing blessings, even if we don't recognize them. My life has certainly been action-packed. A lot of it good, much of it bad, but I've learned valuable life lessons along the way and managed to become one of the happiest people I know. I'll be sharing my thoughts and stories, and things I know and believe. I encourage you to leave comments so we can all learn from each other! Happy reading!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

It was a dark and stormy night...

Some people think about life as a series of words and images. I'm like that. Everything comes with it's own built-in description and I have an obsessive need to talk about it. I decided I wanted to write a book when I was barely into my teens. I've started and stopped said book about a hundred times or so. The title's changed, the concept, the content, even the genre has fluctuated over the years. I just knew I had to write the way a man who loves the ocean needs to sail. And so I have.

A number of years ago, I stumbled upon a book concept. It's actually the first in a nine book series. I again started and stopped it a bunch of times as life crowded in on me. But earlier this year, something changed. I decided it was time to get serious. I decided that I was going to not only write this book, but get it published. And so for the past few months, I have been planning, researching, and writing diligently. The result is what I think (and hope) to be a pretty damn good little novel. I'm on track to have it finished by the end of the year and will start trying to publish then. I've been very excited about it actually, and it's been a constant topic of conversation in this house for some time now. Thank God my daughter is endlessly supportive and my dog has no idea what I'm actually saying to her.

In researching the publishing process though, I came upon a number of sources that say that the major publishing houses really want new, first-time authors to have previously published work. Hmmmm. Well I don't have that. Most of my work is on napkins and sticky notes and on the back of receipts scattered around the house. I even have a number of journals that have scribbles of all kinds of subject matter in them. And there's the book of course. That's in better shape, but still, nothing I've published. The thought of trying to ply my writing wares to endless magazines and online publications was somewhat daunting, to say the least.

Then it hit me. A blog! I knew what they were, had even read a few, but had never before thought of writing one myself. Until last week. Blog articles are considered published writings. So I found a simple solution to my published works quandary. And I immediately began the task of researching the best site, the best way to set it up, and everything else that goes along with creating a blog. Easy peasy.

Well. Not so much. It wasn't nearly as easy as it was supposed to be. After several days of muttering swear words under my breath, yelling to my teenage daughter to come help with the latest thing that's not working, and alternately threatening to throw my computer out the window and talking sweetly to it in hopes it would do what I wanted it to do, I have finally finished creating my precious blog. Sort of like an online baby. Only I don't have to change diapers. It took much longer than it should have, no doubt because I was not born with the technology gene, but I believe I've figured out and fixed all the bugs.

It's still very much a work in progress. I'm likely to continue changing it around some, and possibly change it back to where it was and then to something different again. That's what I do. But at any rate, I hope you enjoy it. I encourage you to follow it, come back often, and let me know what you think. Post comments as often as you wish. I ask only that those that comment be respectful of all who visit here. Thank you so much for dropping by! Happy reading. :)

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