The Marriage of True Minds

Last November, I wrote a novel. This November, I'm starting a blog. Time will tell which endeavor is more immense.

For most well-known and published authors, "writing a novel" probably means countless hours of planning, drafting, composing and revising, not to mention hassles with editors, publishers and agents. For me, "writing a novel" simply meant that I spent most of my free time during the thirty days of November 2008 tapping away on my computer. My target, according to the contest on nanowrimo.org, was 50,000 words. If this sounds like a lot, you should know that the Harry Potter books range from 76,944 to 257,045. And my opus is nowhere near that in terms of quality, readability and market value. I wanted to be able to say that I wrote a novel, and now I can.

Much more recently I have been entertained, charmed, tickled, captivated and delighted by the blogs of my brothers and my sister-in-law. More than that, I have been inspired. Between Jonathan's hilarious sense of humor, Scott's pensive musings and Rachel's wonderful way with words, I've seen how great it can be to write casually, and to share that writing. So I'm off on my own blogging journey.

What do I want to write about? I think most of my inspiration will come from what I love: my wife, my family, my friends, my cats, my job, good food, memorable literature, and the words themselves that express that love. In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare described love as "an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken;" I'm going to let his words guide mine, and let love be the "mark" by which I steer my way.