YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!! (Word counted that as one word) Okay.  I am pumped!  What an incredible thing!  Read it here!

I have been told in sundry times and in diverse manners, that what i need to do is set some goals for myself as far as my writing is concerned.

The idea that, no matter what, I will write three hundred and fifty words every day is a great start but a little tougher than you might at first expect.  I think the author of the original article meant that you should add to your current project or projects, but writing about something new each day, or, more accurately, scrawling a thought a day, should get the creative juices flowing.  I already write long e-mails to friends on esoteric subjects.  I like the idea also because it reminds me that I want to make this my work, not just a pastime.

This brings me to the goals.  What do I really want from writing?  I think I want two things.  I want to make money as a writer and I want my writing to have artistic merit as well.  Here is my tentative plan:

1) Complete a short story of 1000 to 3500 words and submit it somewhere, either to a contest or to a magazine before the end of, ummm, er, ah, well, how about before the end of 2005?  I will try not to take rejection personally.
2) Submit at least five poems somewhere other than Poetry Dot Com for publication.
3) Work on plotting a novel.

While this will not make me a superstar overnight, we can hope that it will help me to become more organized and more committed to writing.  I think it may also influence other areas of my life, such as my business, which I need to kick-start as well.

So, the "Long And Winding Road" may lead, not to someone’s door, but to the door of success and opportunity.  I must keep this small, three-hundred-fifty word commitment and meet these goals, and I will be on my way.

The last question I have is something I have noticed when trying this.  Why is it so hard to come up with three-hundred-fifty words?

Well, the adventure is pretty much over now, thanks to Margaret's cleaning prowess.  The whole article is here

I AM JAZZED, JAZZED, JAZZED!  Read Why Here

Wednesday Night Bible Study, Pastor Johnson had taught about being excited and full of joy when you are out among people and letting the world see that you have joy.

What a day!  The steenking dog episode happened around 4 A.M.ish on Thursday and was just the beginning.  Read about it here

Just a note of explanation now that i have sent out a mail to all my friends and family about this blog.  I have a wide variety of friends from a wider variety of ideologies.  What this means to you, gentle reader (don’t ya love Miss Manners?), is that some of you will wonder why there isn’t more church stuff, or more political stuff, or more writing stuff, or more funny/weird stuff and while you are wondering about that, the other people will be wondering exactly the opposite, e.g., why so much church or politics, or who cares about the difference between a trochee and an iambus and if he’s such a big-time, fancy-schmancy writer, why does he use ridiculously long, yea, verily even, run on, sentences?

One of the other cool thing about these guys (blogdrive.com) is that you can have more than one blog under the same account, so, for example, Carter could do one on nothing but the 2nd amendment and one on beer and one on the Cavalry or just do one that has stuff about all three from time to time.

Oh, and i MUST clarify one other thing.  I really am not a big-time writer.  I have had a couple of very minor pieces printed in a vanity press.  This is where this exercise is supposed to come in handy.  I get to practice on my friends and relatives and any total stranger that happens to stroll by.

Anyway, thanks again to all of you for being patient and if you have any questions or something you really want to know about, let me know.

Since there are some people that know me and my family well and others know little or nothing I think I will just list off the players and jump in.  As time goes on you will get to know more about each of them.  The people that live in my house with me are:

The Actors
(Sorry, I am enjoying the Shakespeare thing at the moment)

Margaret:  My wife of 24 1/2 years

Grandma Pike:  Margaret’s Mom who has lived with us about 23 yrs.

Abigail:  My 13-year-old daughter

Tabitha:  My 15-year-old daughter

Elizabeth:  My 18-year-old daughter

Snoopy:  Our dog that used to lie on top of his house, but not on his back.

Fraidy Cat, Fee-Fo, and The Wintergreen Witch:  the cats

Blue Sky and Rainbow:  The parakeets

Roo Boom-Boom Thiel:  A very large white rabbit

Other Players
(That don’t live in this house)

Benjamin:  My 21-year-old married son

Isabel:  His very nice, nobody knows how he got to be so lucky as to get a nice girl like that, wife.

Baby Thiel:  The coming grandbaby

A wide variety of supporting cast and characters

Ashley, Wendy, Ben-Down-The-Street, Ben-Next-Door, The Simonses, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, Douglas Adams, Robert Heinlein, William Shakespeare, Louis L’Amour, Edgar Allen Poe, Fibber McGee and Molly, Abbott and Costello, The Shadow, The Saint, Mowgli, and many others.

A house in a neighborhood near Fort Carson, CO, across the street from Pikes Peak Community College and about 3 miles from the church, the store and the bank.

Now that the introductions are out of the way, I suppose the best way to do this is just start writing, but since I have used up all of the last couple of mornings preparing to blog, I have to go now, but more will be on the way, so stay tuned!

Okay, here is the truth about that fateful day in, oh, what, 1978 or 1979 when Carter King's pinball machine was tilted.  Read the story here

To blog or not to blog, that was my question

Read the complete text Here