Hi. I’m not the first to type this message, this hesitant, should-I-really-be-spending-my-time-this-way first message on a new blog. I’m certainly not the first person to start with a photo of my dog, right?

So what? I’ll try to be creative later. For now, I’m going to do what I would encourage and have encouraged other people to do—just get started. Whatever it is, it has momentum, and if you can get yourself to move, to do, you are already rushing toward what you think you’ll never accomplish.

For instance: I’m a writer. Writing has momentum. If you can just talk yourself into starting, you will be amazed at how quickly the world falls away. You’ll snap out the trance an hour later and not believe the good things that have happened to the blank page you once had.

That’s what I’ll be talking about here. Writing. Books. Publishing. Magazines, if I read anything good. Movies, if I see any I think other people should see. Myself, if I think anyone else might be interested. But mostly what I’m interested in? Writing. Books. Publishing. I’m hoping you’re interested in these things, too, or I can just shut down this shop and post pictures of my dog.

But let’s give it a try, OK? I’ll write about writing process, writing successes, failures, dilemmas, opportunities. If I get published, I’ll tell you how it happened so you can try it for yourself. (I’ve had a lot of questions about writing and publishing for someone so new to the business, but I will take questions here. Feel free to post them.) I’ll also tell you where I got published, so maybe you’ll want to support that publisher or send stuff there yourself. I’ll read books and then tell you about them so you can decide if they are books you would like to read. Movies. Music. I don’t really want to blah-blah-blah about myself all that much, but I’m sure you’ll get a good helping of that as we go along, too. Let’s face it, you’re going to hear about my dog.

It’s a beginning, anyway.