It's not as easy as I thought

I thought I could set aside 5 or 10 minutes every day to jot down some thoughts for this blog. I mean, as much as I opine about stuff (music, sports, politics, you-name-it), I thought this thing would be a snap. But four months later, here I am, still author of an empty blog.

Maybe I need to start DOING more exciting things so I'll have something to write about. Maybe I should actually try to REMEMBER things I thought about writing about and actually write them.

I can remember my first semester of college in which I was enrolled in a course called "Creative Writing Poetry." The professor was a successful writer himself, with several novels and nonfiction works to his credit, not to mention several teleplays and literature textbooks. He was one of the humblest, kindest, most unassuming individuals I had ever met. Anyway, on the first day of the class, he admitted that even he wasn't sure what the title of the course, "Creative Writing Poetry," was supposed to mean, only that he was sure there would be creative writing involved. As for the "poetry" part, I recall that nothing came of that. But what I'm getting to here is the first assignment that this man gave: "Something you have always wanted to write." He would give no more direct a description than that. When I handed in, two days later, an outline of a short story I had been working on, it came back with the comment: "No. I want something you have always wanted to write." I wasn't alone, as many of the class members received similar responses to their work. We began to think he was nuts. I thought so, until I came to the realization that a thing as important as "something I have always wanted to write," could not be so easily and swiftly brought to fruition. It then occurred to me that I handed in the assignment too soon, that no aspiring writer in his or her right mind could do something this monumental in a day or two, and it also occurred to me that the man had given no deadline for the assignment. Throughout the course of the term, the assignment seemed to have been forgotten. The last week before the end of the term, we were reminded of an assignment that was due. Well, right away we knew.

So here's my first post. More to come.