Back on the Horse

Okay, here we go. New year = new possibilities. Blogging—2012 edition—officially begins today.

Liz bought me Stephen King's On Writing for Christmas. Great book if you read Stephen King. Great book if you enjoy writing. King gives many helpful suggestions to those of us still learning the craft. A handful of tips really resonated:

(1) Writers need to read. I already read about 20-25 books per year, so I'm doing pretty well there. King said he reads approximately 80 books per year, which seems crazy. I suppose it helps that he mostly avoids television, so I'm going to make an effort to eliminate pointless television (mostly reruns) from my life. Good television (Dexter, Breaking Bad, American Horror Story) has taught me as much about good storytelling as any book I've ever read, so I'm not completely abandoning the boob tube, but how many reruns of Law and Order: SVU can one man possibly watch?

(2) Writers need a place to write. This is a work in progress. I set up an office in our basement over the summer, but our basement is currently one hundred degrees below zero, so that doesn't work. When we (likely) buy a house later this spring, creating a comfortable writing space will be a top priority, but for now, I'll make do slumming it at our kitchen table. As a multitasker, I'm used to writing with the television blaring in the background, or my phone beeping, or Facebook running in the background, but that's an awful way to lose yourself in a story.

(3) Writers need to write. And that leads me to today's post. I don't write enough. I used to write almost every day from 2005-2007, then I got burnt out and essentially quit posting in 2008. The Church Experiment revived my blog in 2009, then I lost interest again when my next experiment fizzled out in 2010. And, frankly, Facebook and Twitter have changed the way people communicate. Why write something in a thousand words when you can write it in 140 characters? I got married, work got busy, and my poor blog was neglected. But writers need to write. And if I'm going to finish my third novel before the summer, I better start writing. 

So, I'm going to start writing again, only this time, I don't care if anyone reads the results.

Seriously. I used to be obsessed with growing my readership. It's probably the reason I got burnt out. Writing became a chore. Starting today, I'm reverting back to that kid who wrote Superdog in the third grade. I'll write about faith, politics, sports, and entertainment. I'll continue updating my Pub Crawl. I'll do some creative writing. Anything goes. The only requirement is that I have fun. I either experience joy during the process or I find a better way to spend my time.

Each weekday morning, I'll spend 30 minutes writing whatever is floating around in my head. You're welcome to read along. If not, that's okay too. Either way, I'm looking forward to scraping the rust off my brain and feeling plastic dance beneath my fingertips.