The last two months have been very interesting.  But rather than talk about my problems I want to talk about writing for a change.  Some people go to school and study journalism to learn how to write.  Others major in English and study creative writing.  The only English I studied in college was what they crammed down my throat.  After 12 years of elementary and high school I had no desire to study English ever again.  If you don’t know what I majored in, you haven’t been reading my blogs for long, and I won’t tell you now.

Instead, I want to talk about creative writing.  I’m a self-taught writer.  I’ve written poetry and other things most of my life.  OK, I admit it.  Much of my initial writing skills came from typing plant labels for the 12,000 plus scientific specimens I’ve collected.  If you add duplicates of a collection number there are more than 40,000.

I have published numerous scientific notes and papers and written a couple chapters in a couple books of nonfiction.  So I met a few lifetime goals, such as publishing a major scientific article.  But I’ve not yet written or sold any books of fiction.  In 2009 I started Moose Creek, my first book of fiction, but after writing 62,000 words I realized I had written myself into a corner and also but I did know how to write fiction.  For other reasons, I delved into writing some of my other books, both fiction and nonfiction.  I now have at least 5 to 7 books going, I’m not even sure how many.

After nine months and some reading and began to get a feel of how I needed to write Moose Creek.  So I started going back tearing out words, paragraphs, pages, and entire chapters.  Then, last week, I realized I had the ending for the story.  I fully intend to have the book completed by the end of March.  The basic story has its basis in my experience as a firefighter, but the guts of the story, well, I don’t want to reveal too much.  Let’s just say I wrote 62,000 words before I figure it out what the story was all about.  Now I just have to make you, my dear potential reader, want to buy the book.  Or at least, help me find a publisher.  If I can make you want to buy a book you know nothing about, then maybe I have some potential as writer.