What got me to start writing an online Blog/Column on WordPress?

It was over a question.

When I was visiting my family one Christmas vacation back in 2013…? 2016…? 2015…? 17?, I don’t remember. Anyway, my sister asked me if I ever thought about starting a Blog. I’m not sure how I responded to her, but I remember what I was thinking:

Hell, No! REAL Writers do not write Blogs! Real Writers write on Microsoft Word, edit the work tirelessly, re-write the thing, edit some more, & after all that love & frustration & compromise fill some mysterious void in the pit of Ours stomachs, you print the S.O.B. out. After it is printed, write a Cover Letter, write a chapter by chapter outline of the whole manuscript… you research for Publishers & Literary Agents in the current edition of the Writers Market tome – you submit! You wait for weeks & months for an answer (oh, do not forget to send a S.A.S.E. with the already bulky package that will cost around $6.00 to send,) & don’t just wait around for the envelop to arrive.

You still have to WORK!

You still have to write while waiting for that oh-so-sweet envelop that will either make all your dreams come true, or it will be just the more common thing slung from that S.A.S.E.: REJECTION!

Another f###ing Rejection Slip. I used to collect them. I put a nail in more than one wall of the different places I have lived and skewered those pulpy, rotten rejection pages.

Why did I do such a thing?

I’d read that was what Stephen King used to do back in his poor & youthful & desperate days when he – the KING himself – was submitting his work with blind faith & youthful determination.

A have not submitted any poems or Submission Packets to any agent or Publishing House in a very long time. However, I do remember riding on the plane back to Missoula thinking about the question my sister asked:

“Have you ever thought of starting a Blog?”

I’m not sure how long it has taken for me to bite the bullet, eat the work, & face the storm head on to come to the conclusion: THIS IS WHAT WRITERS DO!

We start Blogs.

We write!

And, with some persistence & luck, someone will read what I have put down.

Do I care how many people read my Short Rants & Odd Stories I post?

Of course!

Would I still do it if they went un-read? Me posting gibberish into the darkness of cyberspace – a scream into that darkness of an electronic canyon…

Well, I’m not sure how many pages I have typed-up on typewriters, how many legal pad pages & spiral bound notebook pages & bound journal I have filled up through the years, read only by me… maybe some of those closest to me… the pages have to be in the tens of thousands.

And that is not close to being an exaggeration.

I wrote all of it down because that is what I do; who I am.

I type things up here, on WordPress, because something built-up in me on that plane ride back to Montana. A question.

Why don’t you start a blog?

After landing in Missoula, after my little family was unpacked & tucked in for the evening, after many drinks & other things I dare not mention, after building up some courage, I typed into a search engine how to start a Blog.

So: here I am, I don’t know how many years later, not knowing how many columns I have published, but I do feel this little sense of confidence & accomplishment each time I publish my work online.

And it has been a long-time overdue, but better late than never:

Thank You So Much To My Favorite Sister.

You asked me one damn fine question.