From the ashes

Much like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes (or the X-Men character rising from the ocean), I am resurrecting my blog. I've been neglecting it for too long, mostly because I'm not sure what I want to do with it.

When I started this, my intention was to document the unemployment process as I lived it. I envisioned this being a mixture of my personal details and helpful tips or links to aid others. I did that to some degree, but never to the extent I intended. So that rules out that purpose for my blog.

Another thing I wanted to do was to explain my transition away from being a sports writer. I did a lot of that early on with this. But as I've drifted farther from my life in the newsroom, the blog drifted further from that as well.

Now I find myself trying to get my freelancing career rolling with some magazine work, but I have not written anything about how that is going or how it happens I'm being pulled back into a direction I thought I'd abandoned.

So my blog is not really about my transition anymore, either.

About the only thing I think I've accomplished with this is to give myself a forum to write. That was what I missed more than anything when I first left The Sun (yes, even more than the friendships). Yet there have been dozens of times I wanted to blog about something and never got around to doing it.

So what exactly am I trying to do here? Does it even matter? If I just ended the blog, would anybody notice? Has anybody even noticed I haven't posted anything in almost a month?

I have a lot of questions. Must be the reporter in me still fighting to get out. But with no answers forthcoming, I figure I'll work my way through this and see if I discover what it is I'm trying to accomplish here.

Kristin and our poet friends are often challenge themselves by writing one poem per day for an entire month. Kristin is doing that for December. I decided I'm going to do the same thing with this blog.

That's nothing earth shattering, I know. Many, many bloggers post things every day. It's kind of the point of blogging. But for me, I've always tried to make each post more like an essay. That's hard to do more than once or twice a week for me.

So I'll probably have a lot of filler days. Days where something on YouTube seems particularly entertaining. Or I'll stumble on an interesting article relating to writing, such as this one from Stephen King about Raymond Carver.

Whatever happens, I'm determined to stick with it for the next 30 posts (31 counting this one). I'm hoping I'll uncover just what it is I'm trying to accomplish here. Who knows, maybe I'll discover my title for this blog has been my purpose all along. Maybe I've just wanted to give everybody a glimpse Beneath This Dirty Hood.