In the Beginning…

“If you do not write today, you are not a writer.”

I posted that yeeeeeaaaars ago in the early days of my old Xanga blog.  Remember Xanga?  Of course you don’t.  That’s how long it’s been since I’ve been on the blogging scene.  And I have not been a writer.  (That was said to me by an author I met at a book signing meet-and-greet sorta shindig at a Barnes & Noble in Little Rock around the time I was fresh out of college.)

I’ve been looking for a purpose to resurrect the ol’ JamesWebsite and it occurred to me, lately, I’ve spent way too many hours writing mini-essays in response to friends’ and acquaintances’ Facebook posts, regarding topics I like to think I know something about, because I like sharing and educating.  I went into overdrive with this during the week after the election, much like everyone else did, and in retrospect, it’s given me much-needed pause.  Hours of writing…that will be buried in various Facebook feeds in a matter of days (if that long), never to be seen again.  It’s like writing passionately upon paper, then promptly tossing the paper into the trash.

So here I’ve kicked this up.  I intend to make a habit of writing things worth reading, or, at the very least, worth writing.  I haven’t blogged in years because it felt narcissistic to me. Why would YOU care what I have to say about any topic?  You don’t see any PhD or other letters of importance by my name. I’m just a dude, and a dude who often rambles incoherently on subjects he’s often wrong about.

But hey, if I can redirect my writing time away from the Facebook trashcan and into the concrete foundation of my own site, perhaps at some point, someone will find something worthwhile here.  If not, well, I’ll have fun making this up as I go.