In the Beginning…

And thus a new web log is launched, and a soon-to-be-59-er (that would be I) joins the ranks of those bloggerrific folks who instantly publish to however many readers care to read, to however many commenters care to comment.

My writing career, such as it is, has been in the world of type, books, magazines, and paper, with the usual gatekeeper roles played by various literary agents and publishers. I’ve had five novels published and two dozen plus short stories.

To that, now, I add a foray into the blogosphere, the first entry of legions. Many of these entries, though not most, will take up the topic of writing. Others will touch upon other topics that rouse my passions–and though I’m soft-spoken, one of those quiet, simmering souls, I am in fact passionate about a great many things, as regular readers will soon discover.

And I like the idea, exhibitionist that I am, of crafting words and thereby an ever-evolving image of "me," whoever that is, and dropping those crafted words into the vast ocean of connected minds, seeing where the never-ending conversation takes us.

For that’s what publishing of any kind is all about: creating community; setting free the unique voice that is thy birthright; telling tales out of school, passing notes in school; being a true iconoclast, scorning, defying, and throwing down the gauntlet to every icon, every false god (and, man, are there heaps of those!); turning off the TV of canting conformity, nay, tossing the set out the window and heeding the still small voice within. Attention must be paid!

Walt Whitman: "I am large, I contain multitudes."

And so it is with us all.

Refuse to be small.

Get in touch with those multitudes, nurture and become intimate with them.

Humbly trumpet the truth as you see it, and humbly be attuned to nuance, ever re-editing, ever re-visioning.

Here’s to communion!