Just write a book. What's the problem?

Until now, I never blogged. I thought blogs and the bloggers who blogged them ranked right up there with angry preteen diary journalists and truck-stop bathroom stall poets. So why am I blogging?

I have 36 reasons. Here are three:

• I discovered a handful of professional, focused blogs from literary experts, like this one and this one and this one and this one and this one, and I realized, hey, blogging, holy shit.
  
  
• There’s this ineffable desire I have. It's an itch. I can’t get to it, by I try with email and Web surfing. It’s the need to be needed, to be connected. So until this day comes via literary pursuits—when I have hundreds of people trying to reach me daily who I ignore—until that day, I’m hoping a blog will help take the edge off.
  
  
• I want to share my trials and successes (I don't write erotica, but it's a bit like S&M) on this path to financial and emotional freedom as an author. Maybe I'll even encourage some friends to do the same.
  

So here we go. This blog is dedicated to you, if you too are on the difficult path of transition to fulltime literary artist: be it novelist, playwright, screenwriter or poet. Here we'll track the daily struggle. We'll experiment, until we are lead to the professional promise land—and one by one celebrate our independence day.

I will forgo peddling my wares or using this forum as a personal promotional tool. The consistent delivery of useful and humorous content will determine the size and depth of our community.

It’s a journey, so let me stick some flags in the dirt for where I stand:

Starting line: Let's get this out from jump street. My name is Jeff and I'm an unpublished author (as of the time of this post). Except for a few travel articles in newspapers and one online essay, I have yet to see the light of publication. I’m a copywriter, currently for an internal ad agency at a health care company. I’ve been a copywriter for about 12 years, writing for print, broadcast and Web. And for about 12 years I’ve threatened to write novels. I did once. (That crappy manuscript is hiding in a drawer.)

Destination: A novelist with a dedicated fan base, publishing short stories in literary journals, asked to speak at conferences and literary events, judge writing contests, and teach writing workshops. I’m open to the gods of abundance, to fame and fortune, but my image is that of a working author, comfortable with his limitations and narrative voice, making a few hundred grand in the good years, slipping beneath the radar of best-seller lists and national award credits.

So, let’s get moving.