It will be painfully obvious from anyone looking at the 'Archives' section on the right side of the blog, but I have to state that there have been times where I have been really lax about writing and posting on this site. November 2013-May 2014 and November 2014-March 2015 both jump out at me (must be something about Thanksgiving). But the one that really grinds my gears is the gap from March 2015 all the way to June 2016. That was over a full calendar year where I didn't include one new post on this site. Unacceptable.

Now, I'm not going to make any grand promises at the moment to post on a specific day of the week or a specific number of times per week for the foreseeable future, but I am making a concerted effort to post on a more regular basis. Here are three things that I've been able to do to make that happen:

1. Set aside time:
   It should go without saying that in order to write regularly, you have to write regularly. I've read so many blog posts from other writers that say you need to write every day for a half hour or every day until you reach a set word count. I try to take that all with a grain of salt. But regardless, the word are NEVER going to write themselves.
   
   Having a family makes it difficult (I won't say impossible) since kids have soccer, swimming, dancing, concerts, playdates, birthday parties, etc. The list goes on and on. But if I don't make time to write, it never happens.
   
   
2. Set limitations:
   I wrote about this when I first advertised my Olympic poem project on the blog a few weeks back. I've always been terrible about coming up with inspiration, but by setting up some boundaries, I am able to work within a set structure and not get distracted by the endless possibilities in the world.
   
   
3. Allow for failure:
   There is a stack (small right now, but growing) of blog posts that I started writing and ended up scrapping. Some bits and pieces of those ultimately end up in other posts like this one, but there have been a few times when the entire thing went into the trash.
   
   It's sometimes hard to accept that the thing I've just worked on for a half hour, or an hour, or a few days is no good. It is very hard to let go sometimes, but ultimately letting go is what allows me to move on to something else that will be good enough.

It's not easy. No one ever said it was. There is a reason that The New York Times only has a handful of the top books to be on their list each week. Those are (arguably) the cream of the crop right now, but don't let that discourage you from sitting down and committing to your writing.

If you're a regular visitor to my site, you may have noticed that a few things have been changing over the past few weeks and I wanted to run down what they are.

When I sat back a few weeks ago and took a good hard look at the website, I realized that I could do so much more with it visually. My first step became working on some new graphic options for links on certain pages. I'm not very graphically inclined, but I have been able to spruce things up on the Writing page and the sub pages that live under that. Go check out the Poetry, Short Stories, Essays, and Archive pages.

I also decided to put together some graphics for the Rio poetry pages as they come out so look for those as they are release. Just a reminder that the first poem from that project is about Virginia Thrasher. You can also read the blog post for that poem.

The other step I took was to simplify the website. I found that even I was confused by the direction it had taken with multiple options in the navigation bar across the top. I trimmed that down and tried to refocus on my writing which is why I created this site in the first place!

I admit that I was excited to see the United States win the first gold medal of the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio back in August. Did I know who Virginia Thrasher was a that moment? I sure didn't. Do I know more about her now? Absolutely!

Not only was she 19 years old when she won the medal, but she did so by beating out two Chinese athletes, both of whom were previous gold medalists in the event! I know I would not have had that kind of confidence in myself at that age in about any discipline, let alone shooting.

So without further ado, here is the poem I wrote inspired by her performance.

Aim For the Top
Verily, I say,
It is a beauteous thing to
Reach the pinnacle of your sport,
Garner praise from your peers
In nations near and far yet,
None were able to match your
Intense accuracy and focus for which you
Attained the cherished goal.
 
That thing all strive for
Has been laid
Round your neck and
As you watch your flag ascend, you
Smile at what you have achieved,
Hand at your heart,
Emotions well up inside as you
Remember all those who stood behind you.

(Note: as of this post, the title for this poem is not definite. I want to start getting these poems out as soon as possible, but can't always settle on titles so I may land on a better name down the road.)

My last post here was an announcement of sorts for a project I was just starting on at the time to write poems inspired by the gold medal winners from the United States in the just concluded Rio Summer Olympic Games. I'm back with a quick update.

​I have 7 of the 46 poems written at this point and am working on final edits and polishing for the first several, planning to release them in the next week or so. The poems that have been written so far include some names you'll recognize (Ledecky, Biles and Phelps) along with some who might be less known (Thrasher and Harrison). I'll be posting the poems here on the blog along with creating a dedicated page for each one as they become available.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past month, the Summer Olympic Games just concluded in Rio de Janiero, Brazil on Sunday. Despite much of the poor press leading up to the games, I personally think they went off quite well.
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If you've read my previous post, you know that I have an ongoing project with the intent to write poems based on Oscar winning films. One of the things I like about that project is that it gives me definitive inspiration in the form of each film.

While watching some of the events during the first week of the Olympics, I had another brainstorm for a series of poems. I am calling them my 2016 Olympic Poems. These Olympic poems would each focus on a gold medal winner from the United States (yes, I know it's hometown bias) and be limited in form by the winner's name. Similar to the poem I wrote based on my own name, I Am, these poems will be written with the first letter of each line spelling out the athlete's full name.

Lately I've been doing a flurry of reading. I got Jeff Goins new book Art of Work last week and love it so far. He has truly become an inspiration in my life over the past year or so that I've been reading his blog and listening to his weekly podcast.

I have another new tool that I’m using to broaden my horizons and that is Wikipedia. For the past week I have been reading the daily featured article on the English version of Wikipedia and even took a look at some of the linked articles from those as well. Because it’s a completely different topic every day, I've learned a little bit about the Nauru reed warbler, the Exhumation and reburial of Richard III and the D'Oliveira affair. I have to be honest and admit that I didn't know the first thing about any of these items. I knew who Richard III was and I've heard of the island nation of Nauru, but these specifics were brand new to me.

They may seem like silly facts and not worth much, but they are beginning to inform my writing. I have stories bumping around in my head now that have bits and pieces of the information I’m picking up in these articles, pieces that I would not have in my head without reading these articles.

I encourage everyone to try and learn something every day. Even if it’s something small, it could come in handy down the road.

Last week was my birthday…well technically it was the 33rd anniversary of my birthday.

I have always been a little annoyed by the convention of calling that anniversary my birthday since there is technically only ONE birthday for each person on earth. This was something I pointed out on the day my son was born. It was his one and only birthday that day. Unfortunately for him, he didn't even get to enjoy cake!

So what does it mean to have a birthday? As with most people, the older I get, the less I really want to focus on my birthday. When people ask me how I feel on my birthday (birth anniversary) I often say it’s “just another trip around the sun.” Some people may think that is a silly way of looking at things because it’s returning me to the place where I started last year, and the year before that…but it’s really something new, just like every day is.

We are moving around the sun and the sun also moves in space, so we truly are never in the same place. From the time you started reading this post, you have traveled millions of miles through space, even though you can’t feel that motion. Tomorrow you will be in a completely different part of space than you are today. The good thing about that is that every day is different. Every day is new.

Take advantage of that opportunity to do something new and exciting today. Write about your adventure and share it with the world. Who knows, maybe some alien species from across the galaxy will find it someday and learn a little something about this particular trip around the sun.

I was a bit surprised (though I probably shouldn't have been) when I went to Google this morning and found a special "Happy Birthday Jonathan!" Google Doodle on the search page. The more I thought about it, Google probably knows more about me than I know about myself...which means I need to pay more attention to me.

Then I thought that it's kind of nice to have Google recognize my birthday. They didn't HAVE to put a special doodle there for my birthday. It's only meant for me, but did make me feel a little special.

It turns out that little things like that are what make a big difference in the world. Doing something to brighten someone's day even when you don't have to...which reminds me of something else I saw this morning. Check out this cartoon thanks to lunarbaboon.com

I spent the afternoon on Saturday this past weekend at my parents house. My mother showed me a number of folders containing old papers from my high school years (actual dates not to be divulged here...)

One of the gems that I discovered was my full high school transcript. I found it amazing that two of the three lowest grades I received in my four years of high school were in my English classes. Little did I know at the time that I would end up receiving my degree in English and becoming a writer.

As I thought about this odd turn of events last night, I realized something. Part of my displeasure with those structured English classes in high school was centered on the need to adhere to rules and standards of writing in a specific way. I don't remember being given the freedom to write as I wanted to write. Had that been open to me, I think I would have been committed to writing from the beginning.

The good news is that I AM a writer.

I AM A WRITER!