There is no shortage of quotes posted on Twitter every minute of every day. 

Many are the motivational kind.  The kind of quote that is easy for Tweeters to find, post, and re-Tweet.  The kind that people can instantly feel inspired by regardless of how helpful it actually is or isn’t.

[I don’t want to digress too much, but the following sidebar might be worth considering in this context.  Consider this post that points out how overemphasizing motivation, and ignoring ability and triggers, is what makes Facebook Behavior Change Apps ineffective: “5 Reason Facebook Behavior Change Apps Aren’t Working”.] 

But I digress a bit with that.  Getting back to my point….

Sometimes I, too, enjoy the clever words in motivational quotes. 

However, more often than not, these quotes also just make me want to point out the non-universality of their contrite claims.

I don’t know why, but I often feel compelled to want to reply to those quotes with a “Yes, but…” answer.  I rarely do, publicly, but, if thoughts could talk….

Here’s an example of the type of quote I’m talking about here.  This one came across my Twitterstream earlier today: 

“No farmer ever plowed a field by running it over in his mind” ~ George E. Woodbury. 

Ok. I get it.  Thinking about something isn’t going to get that something done.  That makes sense.

However, instead, my first reaction would be to reply to this apparent bashing of the thinking process with something like this:  “Maybe there is a good reason why the farmer didn’t want to plow the field right away.”

Maybe I should instead be asking myself, why do I even bother arguing with myself over quotes anyway? But that’s probably a question for another day.

Maybe it’s just that I believe “thinking” and “restraint” have served me well over time. Though maybe this  is why I find it harder to write more often than I currently do, too.

At the same time, I believe I’m open enough to consider a possible self-contradiction here.  Today I also came across a blog post which happened to have a very similar concept to the quote I wanted to argue with above.  Same concept, but this post instead strikes an emotional chord with me that I can relate to on a more specific level.  Consider this post by Ken Robert, @MildlyCreative: “An Angry Letter from Your Big Idea.”

Maybe I just seem to prefer more words, details, and explanations (e.g., the Who, What, Where, When and Whys of a concept) rather than over-generalizations and over-simplifications.   Maybe it’s more about how those words are expressed rather than their bottom line anyway.  

But that’s what motivates me.  What about you?

We usually can’t recognize the tipping point of exactly when a pleasurable pursuit suddenly becomes a dreaded job, a.k.a. work.  Yet, we clearly know when that line has been crossed. 

It’s like the difference between running at a steady pace striving to reach a particular goal versus running to catch or keep up with something just out of our reach.  There’s a distinct difference in the feel of the activity.  The added pressure or stress just takes away any chance to enjoy the freedom of possibility.   

I remind myself of this as I build up new muscles, in my body and in my writing.  If it’s not fun, then why do it.  We have enough pressures in life, why put more on ourselves.   

But instead of quitting the activity that might feel like work at the moment, I find I can also choose to change the activity so that it feels like fun again, too.

I’m not going to let stress and invisible pressures take the creativity out of me, instead I’m going to use my creativity to banish the stressors. There are points of no return, but this isn’t one of them. 

How do you handle your pressures?  Are you winning the battle?

“Showing up is half the battle.”  That is how I started my routine of going to the gym regularly.  I found it was easier to go every day rather than scheduling or remembering to go on some sort of every other day basis. 

Driving directly to the gym after work is simply part of my autopilot routine now, as is packing my gym bag in the morning.  I never have to rationalize whether or not I’m going to go to the gym any more, but instead I put my focus on deciding what to do once I’m there.

I’m writing of my gym-going routine now as I sit here with one hour left on Day 2 of my new commitment to blog daily.  Can I really be at risk of failing to start my new daily writing habit already?

Nope.  I’ve decided that will not happen.  I will make the effort to do what I can with what I have.

While some people believe that blogging on a daily basis will only lead to lower quality posts thus leading readers to lose interest in the blog all together, I feel that since I don’t really have any regular readers (yet?) anyway, why should I even worry about that.

I care about my blog.  I care to present topics that are respectful of my readers’ time.  I also care to create a habit that will make me a better contributor to their time in the future.

So, for Day 2, I will call this “Mission Accomplished” (though I understand the mixed meaning this phrase has taken on in recent years.)   I wish you the best in your daily pursuits as well.   Here’s to building that muscle.   Hope to meet you here again tomorrow.

As you may have noticed, it’s been a few months since I’ve last updated this blog. 

As you may not know, this wasn’t exactly a planned hiatus.  Probably not unlike other writers out there, somehow I got myself into this rut where I didn’t believe I had anything worthwhile to say that wasn’t already probably being said by someone else.  So, I stopped writing.  Though, that is not to say that I didn’t miss the satisfaction of getting my thoughts down in black and white, which I truly did miss.

Anyway, a number of different inspirations have come together for me lately to inspire me to recommit to some new goals for this blog and I wanted to start by sharing these insights with you here.  I’m hoping these will guide me on a new course, one that we’ll both consider worthy of sticking around for.

My latest realizations are:

(1)    I am truly impressed and inspired by what blogger, Josh Hanagarne of the “World’s Strongest Librarian“, has accomplished with his life and his blog in the past year.  Read about it here: “World’s Strongest Librarian is One Year Old”.

(2)    In reading Chris Brogan’s challenge to blog about the importance of story in your life, I  realized I need more “story” in my life.  Not the kind of made up stuff, but the kind of real “experiencing life” kind of things.  I’ve spent enough time around other people’s “campfires” listening to their stories and I now need to take my turn and find my own stories to tell.

(3)    Like many others, health and fitness has finally become much more of a priority in my life.  I love “The Biggest Loser” and I enjoy following people like Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper online.  And as my fellow bloggers write about the role that fitness is playing in their lives, I’m finding more and more positive influences to follow.  I was particularly motivated by Josh’s post on Adam Glass’s blog and I believe in their message of “Nobody To Impress But Yourself“.

(4)    I was also glad to come across Problogger’s reminder post on “How to Choose a Niche to Blog About“.  I’ve been at this “lost” place before, but now I feel closer to a resolution.  I’m an analyst by trade and know there has got to be some way to create a niche around “thinking” that can be fun and interesting.  I’m on a quest to find (or create) that path, believing it can and will be found, again feeling encouraged by this “Go After Your Goals” post.

(5)    Then there is this steady stream of news reports that I keep reading about studies that contradict conventional wisdom. Studies and statistics always seem factual, yet are still easily misleading and confusing.  Consider the following:

Long-term use of osteoporosis drugs linked to hip breaks
Experts debate merits of breast cancer screening, mammograms
A Wine Diet Study Shows Alcohol Helps Women Lose Weight
Can Your MultiVitamin Give You Cancer?
New Studies Eat Into Diet Math

What do we do with studies such as these?  Don’t they just kill our trust in everything?  (And, that’s not even mentioning what is being reported about politics these days.) Either way, I look forward to exploring philosophies around these kinds of topics with my fellow bloggers and readers.

While by no means am I an arrogant person, I do feel confident to state that I realize I do have things to say, as I believe everyone does.  I’m hoping that what I have to say and how I say it helps others in what they have to say. 

Anyway, who knows what the next 365 days will hold for any one of us.  All I know is that not writing is not going to get me any closer to working through any of my many thoughts and inspirations.  So here begins one analyst’s quest for some worthwhile stories to tell….

What makes my thoughts or ideas any more or less prophetic, important, or meaningful than anyone else’s?  

I’m sure I could say some things that some people in search of such wisdom haven’t heard before.  They’d probably be rather impressed with what I’d communicate.  Who knows though…if I were referencing commonly held beliefs or affirmations often heard in circles that others just haven’t encountered yet, perhaps they would hear the same thing somewhere else along their journey anyway. Isn’t there a phrase about: “When the student is ready, the teacher will be there”? 

At the same time, sometimes we just need to hear things multiple times in different ways before they sink in or trigger us into action. 

I could spend a considerable amount of time writing something like an ebook that no one will ever read either because it wasn’t of interest or because I didn’t know how to get it in the right hands. 

What’s the opportunity cost of anyone’s time spent doing anything? 

If “laughter is the best medicine”, might we all not be as well off  just watching a bunch of sitcoms rather than doing something futile? 

Yet, keeping an unwritten idea alive in one’s mind takes up a lot of energy and space that could likely be utilized more effectively for other things.  True?

I guess in the end we never know what really matters.  What makes us happy could be one criteria.  What pays off in some way (either for our own pocketbooks or in helping someone else)  might be another possible criteria.

Then there’s the “do no harm” part that we could all inadvertently cause in spite of the best of intentions, too. 

Maybe simply adding a disclaimer that the writer don’t know everything about anything might help portray the provided ”advice” as “food for thought” and prevent it from inadvertently being blindly followed by anyone. 

But then again, being polarizing is what attracts attention and sells.

In the end, this just makes me wonder how marketable something intricate, compelling, yet interestingly inconclusive could possibly be?  And, there is just one way to find the answer to that question…and it seems that will involve doing, and not only thinking and wondering about it.

The ubiquity and accessibility of the Internet has long since given flight to the belief that: “Everyone has a book in them.” Some of us will write that book.  Some of us won’t. 

Motivational gurus will work to encourage us to get our book(s) written.  Additionally, The Long Tail theory will insure that a broad range of books (of varying content and quality) will get written and read.

Clearly writing a book that gets published and read by others makes most authors feel worthy and satisfied at putting forth their best effort to leave a, hopefully lasting, legacy of some sort behind.

Yet, just because a book gets written doesn’t mean it’s a good book.  Of course, “good” is a broad and relative term.  Clearly not every book idea is worth writing or reading, regardless of whether or not that indubitably will take place.

Of all the good books that do get written by good writers, the reality about books is as follows: 

• There will be good books that never get read.
• There will be good book ideas that good writers never get around to writing.
• There will be bad book ideas that never get written (and rightfully so).
• There will be good ideas that don’t become good books.
• There will be good writers that write bad books.
• There will be bad writers that write bad books.
• There will be bad books that never get read (and rightfully so).
• There will be bad books that will get read.
• (Interestingly, there won’t be bad writers that write good books, because writing a good book by default gives its author the credence of being a good writer.)

 

 Either way, before an author puts pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) self-doubt will surely find a way to creep into the picture.  Common questions that come to mind include the following:

“Am I a good writer?  Is this a good book idea? Is it original enough?  Does anyone care about what I’m trying to communicate?  Has someone else already tackled my book idea?  Will my life experiences really make my particular observations and way of framing them unique?  Can I be unique yet still evoke a commonality of experience that enough readers can relate to?  Will my “unique” way of capturing and conveying an idea be anything more than just another way of capturing and conveying the ideas of another author who already beat me to the game?”

In the end, it seems that the best way to answer those questions is to invoke that success strategy of “fail fast and often”.  I suppose we’ll never know what the true potential or legacy of a book idea is until we get it written, edited, and out there.  I’ll keep you posted on how things turn out for me.

If you (or someone you know) has any related experience(s) to share, please share below.

Other related posts by this author:

• “Is Original Thought Still Possible” (EzineArticles.com)
• “To Write or Not To Write?” (EzineArticles.com)

I must admit that when I first saw the agenda for the Writer’s Digest Conference, taking place in NYC this year, I didn’t quite understand why there was such a big social media focus at the event. I wondered if the event organizers weren’t just jumping on the bandwagon of the latest online trends.

Gladly, my skepticism turned out to be quite short-lived.  Right from the very first session I attended, I immediately understood that this apparent merging of topics wasn’t any kind of a forced fit, but instead was a natural union that made perfect sense.  The book publishing environment is clearly changing — it’s not just about getting an agent and finding a publisher anymore.

I decided that since my learnings might be of interest to some of my fellow creative friends, I put together this list of 8 things I learned about “21^st Century publishing” and how social media can be used to legitimately bypass the bombarded Gatekeepers and make you a successful Gatejumper.

[Attribution Note:  I sometimes get nervous about whether or not I’ve given adequate and accurate credit where credit is due for particular ideas. Let me acknowledge that the following tips are essentially a mashup of learnings from:  @ScottSigler, @SethHarwood, @BeTheMedia, @ChrisBrogan, and @JaneFriedman. Thanks to all of these great presenters for the learnings!] [FYI:  No affiliate links are used in this post, so feel free to click through the links.]

So, let me know if these points resonate with you, too:

(1)  Your book is just one vehicle to get your message out. As pointed out by David Mathison of “Be The Media”: Your book shouldn’t be your business model or your end game. As with social media, it’s never about the tools. As Chris Brogan makes clear: Your book is a way to connect to people (as also demonstrated by the book, Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan & Julien Smith.)

(2) You are the best person to sell your book.  Successful fiction writers, Scott Sigler and Seth Harwood, are perfect examples of how, especially in the beginning, you should do it all yourself. Create your own platform.  Build your own audience.  See how Seth Harwood simplifies the process he uses in this “How He Podcasts” video clip on YouTube.

Also, consider how Writer’s Digest editorial director, Jane Friedman, clarifies how “publishers sell your book to wholesales, distributors, and booksellers – it’s up to you to reach your readers.”

 Building your own audience first (as Seth Godin also writes about in his book “Tribes“) is what makes getting published easier later (see more at point #6).  Having your own audience also gives you leverage to negotiate better contract terms when the time comes, as emphasized by David Mathison in his book “Be The Media”.

(3) In 21st Century publishing, there are no rules. (Notice how Writer’s Digest editor Jane Friedman’s blog is even entitled: “There Are No Rules”.)  Also, paraphrasing Chris Brogan: “The first one there owns the game. You set the frame. You explain why this is the solution.  Then you deliver it.  You make the game.”  Chris even had a quote that went something like this: “Don’t go where the road leads. Go where there’s no road and create your own.”

(4) “The biggest enemy isn’t piracy, it is obscurity,” that is the way Scott Sigler says it.  Chris Brogan uses the word “providence” to describe how when you “give everything away it will come back to you.”  This doesn’t seem like a logical approach on the surface.  But I believe in how fiction writers, Scott Sigler and Seth Harwood, succeeded by consistently giving away complete and “free serialized audio books” a.k.a. podcasts. (Similarly, Chris Brogan is known for how he gave away tons of free content for years before the book “Trust Agents” came out; Darren Rowse of Problogger fame did it with what became his “31 Days to  Build a Better Blog” book; and Hugh MacLeod, a.k.a. Gaping Void, did it with a full-length manifesto on Creativity which became his recent book “Ignore Everybody”.)

(5) Learn how to be human at a distance. As Chris Brogan explains:  It’s not about you, it’s about your readers. Be there before the sale. Give someone help for free rather than giving them a postcard that they don’t want and can’t use.  Do this right, and you don’t have to sell them anything, they’ll want to buy from you.  Hence, the following point #6.

(6) The easiest way to get a book published is to not try to. This one is from Chris Brogan, too, he describes it like this: The best time to find a job is when you already have one. You’ll exude a different level of confidence.  But, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to put in the hard work either (more on that later).  And, he goes on to explain that this is not “fake it till you make it”. It’s about bringing your best. (Remember the negotiating leverage from point #2).

(7) Focus on finding readers (an audience), don’t focus on finding other writers (unless that’s your business).  Scott Sigler and Seth Harwood remind us that your audience is interested in your message. In finding topics to cover in your blog, focus on your readers and your message; keep the industry stuff separate.  True readers probably aren’t that interested in industry news or the behind-the-scenes processes (other than true die-hard fans). Though, do work with your Industry Peers to cross-promote with them to leverage different audience bases.

(8) Your revenue stream will not come from the book, but from what comes next.  Books are your best $25 business card, leading to other revenue afterwards such as from: speaking; consulting; advertising; being hired for other projects; etc. Consider the progressive steps listed on the bottom scale of this: Be-The-Media’s Product-Pricing Curve.

So, overall, while there are no hard-and-fast rules to success, per se, these are some really useful guidelines to consider. 

As Chris Brogan quips, phones don’t accidentally get new followers, people don’t randomly find you.  There is work involved here.

The closest thing to a formula that I could put together from this event is the following:

• Take Chris Brogan’s advice to “listen at the point of need” by using Search and participating.  Also, market to Google as much as to people.
• Use Scott Sigler & Seth Harwoods’s process of: “Content. Consistency. Promotion.” over a 3-to-5 year timeframe.
• Put in, what Malcolm Gladwell concludes is, 10,000 hours in your area of focus to establish your expertise. 
• Target the achievable, yet still manageable, goal of finding 1,000 true fans, a concept from Wired Magazine editor Kevin Kelly and written about by Dave Mathisen in his book, “Be The Media”.

Do all that, and tell me if that doesn’t work. Either way, that’s what I’ll be trying.  What about you?

Please let me know what you think.  Are these tips and concepts use-able for you?

There is a lot of advice out there.  Ask different coaches for advice on how to be successful and you’ll probably get a lot of different answers, sometimes conflicting, but certainly a core set of common beliefs, too.

Clearly one common ingredient to the success equation is: “having passion”. 

A nice clarification I recently heard goes something like this:  Passion alone won’t make you successful, but without passion, success isn’t likely or sustainable either – or, more technically speaking, passion is a “necessary, but not sufficient” condition.

So, what gets me speaking about passion now?  Well, a recent post on this topic on Problogger: “How Passion Can Transform Your Blog”, along with the “Trust Agents” theme of “humanizing the Web”, has spurred me to share my passions as an experiment to see what, if anything, comes of it.

So, What Am I Passionate About?

Some passions are not so simple to rein in, but here goes….

> I’m passionate about people — though that’s not to say that there aren’t people (actually, quite a few) that don’t totally annoy me more often than not, too.

> I’m passionate about thinking, including: options, possibilities, combinations, what has been, what could have been, what can be, and what is yet to be.

> I’m passionate about how various forms of art (be it: theatre, writing, music, video, artwork, etc.) capture and convey the nuances of the human experience.

> I’m passionate about seeking solutions to conflicts while knowing the certitudes of science seem to be grossly outweighed by the complexities of things like: fluid opinions; steadfast judgments; multiple perspectives; and lifelong evolving experiences.

And, I absolutely admire the confidence of passionate people, especially those that are not afraid to express their opinions (and can artfully do so without alienating or offending those that clearly disagree).

Giving my passions a single name has been tricky, but I’ve decided to forge ahead anyway.

Are We Strange?

Yet our unique passions can seem strange to those that don’t understand them and/or don’t understand what we choose to do with them.

It’s like the Breakfast Club character that I most relate to, the uniquely strange, but still loveable, quirky and weird, Allison Reynolds (played by Ally Sheedy). 

Many people like to root for the underdog, the strangely weird, uniquely flawed, and largely misunderstood personality that doesn’t seek to be the odd man out, but is naturally just different from those of other cliques that don’t understand them.

Our passions can make us seem strange. 

But, to The Passionate, being passionate-less probably seems strange, too. 

What The “Passionate-Less” Don’t Know Yet

I’d prefer to think of the seemingly “passionate-less” folks as those that would certainly be passionate if they only knew how to reign in that which certainly resides within them if they could only recognize it for what it is.

Getting the confidence to boldly direct our passions in whatever apparently strange direction they take us might just be the key to opening the rusty lock of a hidden treasure chest that we all seem to need to seek out.  Wouldn’t we all like to discover the unique treasure map within us that leads us to a treasure-chest full of riches worthy of the journey?

Trusting that the rewards will be there, and the journey will be worthwhile, let’s embark on whatever journey lies before us.  I know I’m ready for the journey.  Who else is in?

Would love to hear where your passions are taking you.  Please share below.  Thanks!

What if we all had a story in us that needed to be told, but we couldn’t find the words to tell it?  What if we never tried?

What if we wanted to do or say something that didn’t exist yet, how could we even begin to describe what it might be?

What if it’s a feeling that we didn’t know how to describe?  Does that really mean that such a feeling doesn’t exist or that others might not also be experiencing the same thing?

What if that word or topic we are searching for existed somewhere, but we just didn’t know where to find it? Or perhaps it’s a “Buzzword of the Year”, for the year 2012? 

What if we could convey just enough of an idea to generate some spark of life to ignite whatever it needed to survive and then grow? [This isn’t starting to sound a bit science-fiction-y is it?]

What if we tried to explain our elusive something and no one we told “gets” it? What if we can’t fully grasp the sentiment ourselves, but we know there’s something there (not in the spooky or spiritual kind of way), but in the “it’s-at-the-tip-of-my-tongue” kind of way?

What if it’s an unspoken good idea that dies a lonely death?  Or perhaps it turns out to be a bad idea that we’ve saved ourselves a ton of time and heartache not pursuing?

What if we hold off pursuing that elusive idea that someone else is also coincidentally and concurrently being tickled to pursue, too?  What if he gets there first and validates our urges a bit too late for us to own them exclusively?  What if we had enough of a different angle on that same sentiment to successfully pursue it anyway?

What if this unknown unpredictable pursuit consumed all our time and we achieved our wildest dreams pursuing it? What if we sacrificed everything for nothing?  What if we did nothing and achieved that same nothing, would that be the same?

What if it wasn’t an All or Nothing proposition?

What if I hadn’t written this post?  What if no one reads this? What if everyone reads this?  What if just the right person reads this?  What if I just felt better getting these words out on paper?

What if I stopped asking “what if”?  What if I never considered “what if”?

Okay, time is about up!  The “100 Articles in a 100 Days” contest which I wrote about in my last post is as good as over. 

While I started off with high hopes of accomplishing what I now realize was an overly-ambitious goal of completing this contest in about 1/3 of the allotted time, not surprisingly, that didn’t happen.  But that’s okay.  I’m still glad I gave it a go. 

Surprisingly, I didn’t realize that I would learn as much as I did in such a short period of time.  If you are curious, here’s what I got out of my brief participation in this challenge: 

What I learned about Article Quantity:

• Writing one article a day (or 5-7 per weekend), and establishing that as a habit is do-able (and that was the whole point of this contest to begin with anyway).
• Writing 5-articles-a-day is not really sustainable for more than a couple days in a row, especially if you have a full time job in addition.
• Writing 10-articles-a-day is not advisable if you want to have a life, too.
• Rushing to meet a contest goal was challenging at first till I realized I didn’t want to forgo quality for quantity.
• Writing for quantity forces you to be efficient, thus eager to cut 700 word articles into two 350 word articles.  Creating bite-size reader chunks makes sense as we’re writing articles here, not books.
• Personally, while I still feel like I’m short-changing the reader if I write less than 400 words, I am gradually getting used to the idea that for article writing it is okay, and actually advisable, to just give some pointers and not try to write exhaustive articles, e.g., to leave the reading wanting more.
• Constantly coming up with new ideas and new angles that are interesting and not just rehashing what you’ve written before is a skill and an art that is worth mastering.

What I learned about Writing Topics:

• This is the first time I wrote on topics that I knew something about without doing additional research; turns out I know about: social media; success/happiness; writing/communicating; self-sufficient/do-it-yourself type of advice; among a few others.
• I have unique experiences and insights that others might benefit from reading about, or might relate to and are worthwhile sharing.
• There are things I know stuff about that I can share that I might not necessarily post on my blog, so article writing provides another writing outlet.  Yet, at the same time, if my article-writing goal is to direct traffic to my blog, not all topics I write about are what my blog will be about.  Something for me to still sort out.

What I learned about the Writing Process:

• Some articles write themselves, others are a labor in love.
• Sometimes editing and proofreading can take as long as writing a first draft, sometimes not.
• I now know better how to repurpose other things I’ve written. Re-writing can improve a piece.
• Rearranging sentences and paragraphs and/or cutting awkward phrasing can really help improve the flow of an article.
• I think I prefer to publish posts as a steady stream rather than batch bursts.
• SEO doesn’t interest me, I especially prefer more natural titles. We’ll see if I change my tune on this over time.

What I Accomplished:

• I qualified as an Ezinearticles Expert Author with Platinum Status.
• I found some good like-minded people to follow on Twitter via the #HAHD hashtag.
• At least one of my #HAHD articles got reprinted (see screen snapshot here) and was Tweeted, whereby I found a few other writing sources to follow on Twiter.
• I got more familiar with the resources available from Chris Knight at Ezinearticles and from Jeff Herring.
• 24 Articles now exist that otherwise would never have been written.  I realize that I have more to write about than I thought I did.

 
Even though I didn’t “win” this challenge, I know that if I never attempted it, I would never have learned what I learned. I even inspired myself to write an article on “Why Commit to (Seemingly) Impossible Goals”.  I, too, am curious to see what the next 25, 50, and 75 articles will be about. 

By the time I hit 100 articles, while this contest will be long over, I know I will be much closer to accomplishing my goal which is to determine the best focus for my blog.  For now, I’m content to be a bit eclectic like The World’s Strongest Librarianwho just had the high honor of writing a guest post on Problogger entitled: Better Questions Than “Do I Need a Mentor?” and “How do I get one?”.

I’ve decided to enjoy the journey.  I enjoy writing. I will continue writing.  I’m glad this contest came along since it got my juices flowing in a new way; I now feel freer and stronger in my writing; and I know of many more writing options and resources to imbibe in.

Thanks to the contest sponsors: Chris Knight, his Ezinearticles Team, and Jeff Herring!