Let’s be honest… Blog is not a sexy a word. Nor is blogger. Were we to play an impromptu game of word association using both of those ugly terms as starting points, the first two words that come to mind — my mind, anyway — are glob and booger. After that comes bobsled. And from there, things only go downhill. Nonetheless, here we are. At the bottom of the hill that is my meager, post-deficient blog.

This is my new year’s attempt to change that.

On my way back to Washington from Boston’s Logan Airport a few years ago, a rather oversized and uncharacteristically jovial TSA agent looked at my driver’s license and ticket, said my name out loud… sloooowwwwwwlllly, and then inquired if I was an author. 

“Why yes,” I replied. “Yes I am.” 

I’ve always fancied myself a writer. But there was one small problem. Beyond work correspondence, the occasional love letter, or my carefully crafted social media posts that are undoubtedly funnier in my head, I rarely write regularly. If at all. And when I do, I have a tendency to write run-on sentences. True story. 

And despite embracing the craft of storytelling in recent years, I still do not make the effort to write — and I do mean write — nearly as often as I should. Sure, I’ll labor over each of my stories, writing and rewriting, engaging in word play, beat, and pacing until I have to give my fingers and eyes a break. But writing with regularity and discipline? No. That’s a shame. And that needs to change.

As a novice marathoner with a goal to qualify for the heralded Boston Marathon many years ago, I quickly learned that to become a better runner, one has to run. Frequently. As in a lot, like at least five times a week. I would hazard an educated guess that the same goes for an aspiring writer. Only swap out the running with writing. 

So as I bask in what remains of the rosy optimism that accompanies the early days of a new year, I submit to you the following: 2016 will be the year that this desert of a blog blossoms into a full blown oasis and ushers in a new era of truthfulness on my part at airport security lines all across the country.
    
Happy New Year. Thanks for reading.