Grand Entrance

I am a longtime writer and longtime blogger. That is, I have found that I have an affinity for bleating gripes, questions and observations into the ether, and I truly enjoy it when someone residing in the ether bleats back.

I've never written professionally, though I do hold a degree in Mass Communications which I've never used, preferring to take the path of professional geek. It paid the bills much better at a time when I was young and wanted the big payday. So actually, I guess I have written professionally, just in C++, C#, Visual Basic and a few other languages rather than English.

I am currently the proud proprietor of two blogs besides this one. One is about my experiences as a foster parent, and has not been updated nearly enough just lately. The other one is political and has been moribund for awhile. I find I've lost my taste for the political flame pits. That's a rough hobby, and I don't recommend it for the thin-skinned.

But while working on my foster blog, I've come to realize that while I may never be a great novelist--though I may give that a shot sometime--I think I could be a pretty good columnist. I do put together the occasional decent blog post when I take the time, and I've been told many times that I have something of a gift for entertaining people with my humble prose. What else do you really need to have a go at writing a column?

Well, actually you need someone to discover you and offer you cash to write your column. At this point I'm looking for exposure, and I don't plan to quit my day job anytime soon so I wouldn't need a huge payday, but the symbolism would be important to me. Heck, if I'm writing for free then I'll just do it right here. So that's why I'm here. To entertain myself, hone my craft, build a body of work as evidence to show potential employers my work and perhaps entertain the odd visitor now and then.

A real columnist will have a schedule, and that's something I've been bad about on my other active blog. I'm going to address that by giving myself deadlines of Tuesday midnight and Friday midnight every week, and perhaps increase frequency if I find I have more to say after a few weeks.

My style? Think of me as a poor man's Dave Barry. Okay, think of me as a dirt-poor-working-class-dog-on-foodstamps' Dave Barry. But I plan to work on it, and I aspire to be a middle-class-dentist's Dave Barry before I'm through.