My first blog post. One writer and no followers. Reminds me of the act of writing itself — sitting at a desk and typing into the faceless void.

What do I want to do with this blog? First, I’ll share thoughts about writing, what I’ve learned from the hours and hours I’ve put in creating stories, what I admire in the published work of other writers, interesting and/or lyrical prose that gets me excited or demonstrates mastery of the written language, interesting posts from other writing blogs, and anything else about literature that strikes me as noteworthy. When I say “literature,” I don’t intend to confine myself to any one genre. Good writing is good writing, whether in mainstream, realistic fiction, poetry, drama, science fiction, comics, fantasy, horror, mystery, or crime fiction.

I’ll also occasionally post reviews of books I’ve read. To train myself to write with as much economy as possible, I’m going to call them 500-Word Book Reviews, and promise not to exceed that word limit.

Now and then, I’ll also write about movies I’ve watched recently. You might think this strange for a writer. We’re supposed to be adverse to the merely visual, instead enraptured by the fully sensory worlds spinning in our heads, right? But I’ve noticed something about writers: many of us are movie mad. The only thing we can’t get enough of, except for books, are films. I’m not sure if this stems from a love of narrative, a subconscious desire to write for the movies (and thus perhaps accomplish something most writers never do with their prose — earn serious money), or a simple admiration for the way a person, though working in a different medium, conveys the same things a writer tries to show in a story: character, plot, emotion and theme.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of for now. Thank you for reading. May your days be productive and may your bookshelves groan under the weight of volumes.