Why Am I Writing This?

Sunday morning, I received a phone call from my mom. It was her weekly check-in. She is back in Illinois, living with an older gentleman in the northwest suburbs of Chi-town. In this household, she pays her way in groceries and other living expenses. One thing she does not have to worry about is paying the phone bill. The Wife and I got her a Sprint phone during the Holidays (Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukkah, Chrismakkah, whatever.) She is a bit of technophobe, but she is getting the hang of it. Anyway, I digress. I am talking to mom on the phoen, and she tells me that I should go and see pictures of my brother's puppy. It is found at oakhaus.blogspot.com.

I hang up the phone, (after the assorted give kisses to everyone finale) grab my handy Toshiba, and go look at the site. Now I have great love for everyone in my family, but we are fairly private people. So I go to the site and find my brother has been blogging for 5 years. Now it is possible that in the past, someone told me he was doing this. It is very possible, because I am so spacey and self-centered in my own pocket universe (which includes The Wife, The Kids, The Dogs, The Cats, and The Bird) that I knew about the blog and promptly forgot it. That is the most likely excuse.

So I check out my Brother's site and read...and read...and read. My Brother has always had the writing bug. To some extent, so have I. Reading his site, Pop Culture Gadabout, I was struck how he always had something to say about something. He writes about what he loves. TV, music, movies, comics, his wife, his pets, anything that strikes his fancy. He put it down on his site. He even had people comment on things. I guess he had gained some friends in the blogverse. It got me thinking.

(And I will get to my point. I hope)

The Wife has been pursuing a new career in insurance sales. She has discovered that she has a knack for it. It is not great income yet, but it has potential. She's been driving around various hickvilles of Colorado, pursuing leads and knocking door to door. While driving, CD's by Sales Guru Zig Ziglar are playing. Ziglar is very entertaining, and has a great voice for motivational-type CD's. (It's deep Texas with a bit of preacher intonation.) Anyway, Zig says that if you want to do something you love, but have a hard time getting of your dead butt to do it, you need to make it habit. You need to force yourself to do that thing every day, for 21 days. At that point, it will become the habit you need to succeed at it.

I want to be a writer. I used to write PC and video games for years. I actually was very good at it. (Not that I made any great money at it. Another time, another story.) I wrote freelance for some magazines. Heck, I even spent time in the trenches writing abou hig school sports for a local paper. I like writing. I just hate the process.

I have ideas that I want to write, but life and all its fears made me hide instead. I got lazy, and complacent. I found excuses to avoid it. I can't write, I have take care of my family life. I have to work. I have to... So when I saw my Brother's blog, and saw what he had done, I woke myself up. He has a life, with all it's pitfalls and small glories. He even told of some of those triumphs andtragedies, amongst the reviews of Robert Crumb Comics and Punk Rock Cd's. He could still take the time to write. So, the next day, I decided I should leap. I created "Stripe the Gremlin" so I could develop a habit. I can write something in this site for 21 days. I know I can. I can get over my myself and my doubts.

Like I say in this post's title, I am not sure why I am writing this. I just know that I am going to write it anyway. 19 more days to go.