Please allow me to share some thoughts on being a part of the 700 Club . . . and no, I'm not talking about the Pat Robertson TV show (although if I did share some thoughts about Pat it would only be to say that Pat Robertson is an even bigger 8-Ball than I am). No, I'm talking about the fact that this is my 700th blog entry for Between Pages.
Now, as a reader and writer, this little blog represents a great many things, and some of these thoughts can be helpful to other readers and writers . . . so bear with me.
First, as I do some quick calculations: with an average blog entry of 250 words (which is, probably, quite a low estimate), I have written some 175,000 words through this blog alone. Some of you may feel that this is 175,000 words too many, and I understand, but for the person who considers me witty or enjoys my borderline insanity or my thoughts on books, writers, writing, publishing, teenagers, marriage or sex . . . well, thanks for reading some of this output.
Secondly, people are always asking me: since you work long hours as a pastor, how do you have time to write? The answer to this question is found partly in this blog. Consider, for example, that the average novel or book is around 80,000 words. This means that I've written a book each year through this blog. Or, in other words, if I wanted to, I could turn out one book a year (EASY BEEZY JAPANESEE) just writing short 250 words entries every day--a work that takes me, sometimes, all of ten minutes to produce. So my answer would be, anyone who has fifteen minutes a day can write at least one book a year, if that person writes EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL. And since I write at least an hour a day, without fail, I should be able to at least WRITE four books a year. Are you with me, algebra brains?
Finally, this blog does represent bits and pieces of other, eventually-published work. I often find myself going back and culling out sections of my blogs for other articles, humor pieces, magazine articles that I write about marriage or sex (my favorite subject!) or works that I produce about the art of writing or thoughts on the publishing industry. My blog also has produced some sections of books that have been written or that I plan to write.
So you see . . . this blog is a tool. In many ways, it's my warm-up writing exercise for the day. I usually draft this blog in the wee hours of the morning or late at night before I turn in to bed. Any serious writer needs the daily practice of putting words to paper (or in this case, into cyberspace) and without the daily tedium and grind of fumbling and sorting words, a writer can't grow and learn. I'm still learning, still improving, I hope.
Who knows, this blog might even reach a few new readers today. And I do hope you'll keep reading as I blog toward 1000 entries.
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