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Starting is one thing. Starting over is another. Starting over and over is what has made me…me
Beginnings are hard.
The hardest thing about flying is getting off the ground. It is the same with writing. There is nothing more foreboding than a white screen and a blinking cursor. In fact, between that sentence and this, I watched the cursor blink for a good three minutes. Like a turn signal the driver in front of you forgot to disengage, it mocked me, leaving me uncertain which way to turn. Every time a hit the period at the end of a sentence, It blinks its steady mockery. I can hear the snide tone in its persistence, saying, “OK, Now what?”
“OK, now what?” This could be the title of my autobiography if I ever finish it. How many times have I crawled from beneath the ashes of a flight that got off the ground but ended in a fiery crash, only to ask that question of myself?
I feel like I have gotten better than most at launching. I continue to work on the art of landing.
Questions you might ask me”
1. Why this? Why now?
I have been writing for a good while now – since the 1980s. I have written so many forms and in so many spaces, I struggle to recall them. I remember first seeing my name in print as a writer. I was a very young minister in Turlock, California. I had submitted a short piece to a national magazine called The Fundamentalist Journal. (I like to think that this was before the word became a dirty one and every religious nut job was slapped with the label Fundamentalist.) Seeing something Ihad written in a publication that people I would never know would read was exciting.
Through the years, I would go from writing in church bulletins to writing for The Upper Room (an internationally-distributed monthly devotional booklet); Our Daily Bread (another popular devotional monthly); The Paris News (a newspaper in Paris, Texas); Bleacher Report (as a Dallas Cowboys correspondent); writing a daily email devotional; called The Way-Maker’s Review, for more than 1,500 subscribers for about five years; my Dallas Cowboys’ blog called silverandblueblood.com (now a site owned by a questionable Chinese company, but once a top-50 NFL blog); writing copy for online clients, ranging from a series on hernias for a doctor to a blog under the pseudonym Veracity Jones for two Canadian investors, to the script for a failed attempt at becoming an eBay-style exchange for the rich and famous; a novel written under my pseudonym L.A. Holly, The Preacher’s Kid (2002); a devotional book, A Month of Sundays: 31 Devotionals for Making Every Day the Lord’s Day; a short little book of short short stories called 1,000 words: an epic journey in a series of short trips. In addition, I have maintained my blog The JourneyMan since 2009.
I am currently working on a series of short stories that will become a book called The Character of the Song. The first two stories are available as ebooks now.
Why this? Why now?
I have accumulated a following of loyal readers over the years. Their interests are as varied as my writing. I have never been able to settle on one thing and stick to it. I write what inspires, angers, encourages, enthuses, or otherwise evokes some emotional response from me. I love Jesus and ministry and preachers, so I write it. I love history and historical fiction. So, I write it. I love sports, so I write it. I love leaders and leadership dynamics, so I write it. I love fiction. I love true stories. I love learning. I love teaching. I love growing. I love inspiring growth.
I promise to be a unique voice. I will not be a parrot. I will not test the pulse of society and try to get in sync with everyone else. I will write what I feel, what I believe, what I see, what I hope”¦
Why this? Why now?
Why not???
2. What kind of community are you looking to build here?
I have called myself The JourneyMan for good reasons.
First, my life has been a journey, man. It has been all over the map. I have served as senior pastor and pizza delivery man. I have been peon and president. I have lived in squalor and in California. I have been ridden hard and ridden high. I did not map this thing out. No one would draw such a map.
Second, a journeyman is defined as follows:
Journeyman: One who has mastered a handicraft or trade; distinguished from apprentice and from master workman.
That is me! I am no novice but I am no expert, either. I haven’t mastered much but I wasn’t born yesterday and I didn’t just come in on a sack of seeds.
I want to build a community of like-minded people. People who”¦
Love words – learning them, understanding them, feeling them in their bones
Love reading things that make them think or feel or both
Haven’t got it all together but they aren’t giving up either
Still believe
Still hope
Aren’t stupid
I want to write for a community of people who know there is more to life than what is force-fed by politicians, activists, apologists, and social media.
3. Be more specific?
I will write a new post each Tuesday. That is the base promise here. It will cover anything, everything but never nothing, always something. That post will be for every subscriber.
I will randomly post between Tuesdays as the spirit leads. Sometimes several posts. Sometimes not.
I will provide unique, deeper monthly content for my paid subscribers, previews of upcoming books, and special discounts on current published works.
Founding subscribers will get all of the above plus signed, personalized copies of every book I have written and will write.
Subscribe today! Let’s do this thing together until someone makes us stop.
