A Blog is Born

The optimism of a new year brings this blog to birth.

I aspire to grow as a writer and every book I've read on writing says writers need to do two things: 1) Read. 2) Write. Stephen King says he reads 80 novels a year (On Writing). Anne Lamott says she rarely takes a day off from writing, not even Christmas (Bird By Bird). Keeping a blog is not necessarily a reading discipline but it can help because of this: You don't know what you think until you write it. That's from Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones). It's my other cornerstone of writing advice. I do read; keeping a blog begs that I write.

Also, there's my dad. One time during college, back when I kept a journal in various notebooks, he and I were traveling and shared a hotel room. He noticed my routines of yoga, meditation and journaling. He already knew about the yoga and meditation, and teased me about the journaling -- gently, as is my dad's nature. He said I was writing my memoirs for posterity. Ah yes ... we can't forget aiming for grandeur. Making the move from diary to internet just makes it more explicit.

Reader advisory: This blog is going to be "churchy". The church and Christian life is what I think about, and per the Goldberg rule it will be what I write about. I also hope to get some poems up here, and of course vignettes involving friends and family.