New Year, New Gear

When I began this blog a few years ago, my stated goal was to chronicle my progress through a writing course from the Institute for Children’s Literature. My unstated goal was to provide myself with an incentive and a platform to write. I quickly lost sight of those aims as I struggled with the demands of the course, my “day job,” and family life. Our youngest daughter graduated high school and entered college, two new grandchildren were born, a sister passed.  

All these things seemed unrelated to learning to write and too personal for the blog. They seemed separate and distracting.

May I now state the obvious? Every writer’s personal life influences his writing life, for better or worse. Some, like me, get bogged down and lose focus and motivation. We use our circumstances as an excuse to “not write,” to let ourselves off the hook. Writing is hard under the best of conditions. “Who can write at a time like this?” Right? 

Others keep going with extraordinary focus. Using their circumstances as fuel, they seldom stall.

So I’m here to confess that I have fallen short of the goal I set when I began this blog. I confess that the fault is entirely mine—it’s not due to circumstances, but solely due to my reaction to those circumstances.

I’m also here to say that I intend to broaden the subject matter of future posts, to make it more personal, to talk about things that affect me and my writing. Which is—well . . . everything! Otherwise, I won’t be motivated to write. 

And if I’m not motivated, either I won’t write at all or I won’t be very interested in what I do write. And if I’m not interested, you won’t be either. Stay tuned for the next installment.