I am not dead yet

For over a year I wrote with great regularity but in November 2008, I stopped. OK, maybe it wasn’t a whole year. Well, maybe not that regular either. I wish I had a really good excuse for quitting. How about, “someone stole the period from my keyboard and I just can’t write without adequate punctuation.” Or maybe, “Preparing for retirement and actually retiring just took too much out of me.” The fact is, I never quit making notes to myself, never quit laughing at the world around me, but I never got around to writing the whole stories down, and I completely failed to share any of them.

This is not my first time falling off the writer’s wagon. There is always the possibility that it won’t be my last either. It has always amazed me how hard it is to develop good habits and how fragile those good habits really are. Eating right, exercising, reading and writing daily; these are so hard to get going and so easy to lay aside. On the other hand, that 9 PM bowl of ice cream, while relaxing in your recliner and watching the Braves seems so natural (and habit forming.)

At least some of my friends have asked me if my computer was broken. It is not broken, merely neglected. I really want to get back to writing things, so I am going to make a commitment to post at least once a week. I want to include all of the dozen years, or so, worth of stuff I have written too. So I intend to write my new stuff and mix in the old that doesn’t seem stale. Hopefully, it will all be fresh enough for public consumption.

When I began talking about needing to get back to putting things on paper, my sweet bride went and got her journal and shared two quotes with me:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

And, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Churchill

The first quote is motivating to me. The second quote makes me wonder what she is thinking about my new plans. She says that she read the second quote to me just because it was the next one in her journal. We’ll see.

In a writer’s conference this spring, I heard Lauretta Hannon say, “write now, worry later.” I will try to put that into practice. I do have stories. In the coming week and months, I’ll tell you about Bible School, Father’s day, and an old railroad man; the tale of the dancing undertaker (I have pictures); why my brother’s recliner hurts his back; how Chicken Road got its name; Only halfway home but broken and OUT, subtitled: is 50 too old for a pastor to play softball; and many more.

This is the last time I will send this out by email (unless someone asks.) That way, I won’t be cluttering your inbox. If you are interested, you can find this at http://chickenroadwisdom.blogspot.com/ I intend to leave the comments on unless they get out of hand.
Bill