Sitting down to write something, including and especially this blog, injects some anxiety into my nerves. I won't bother explaining why in too much detail. Just a lot of pressure, it feels like. I get the same anxiety when I think about writing in my journal.
To use the heart-wrenching words of Gob Bluth, I feel "so much pressure to be bright." Or to get things down in sufficient detail. To not forget anything that might be important. And the odd sensation of opening the floodgates---I tend to overwrite, to try and get everything out there, even if it might not be important to the reader or even get in the way of the point. I desperately need to learn the skill of distilling. Sadly, my brain hasn't yet fully graduated from the old days, when I used to be self-conscious about my word count, needing it to be as high as possible to fend off the feeling that I'm not writing enough. And these days, I have a lot of thoughts, and I could go on for awhile about them, so it's like having to channel the water from those floodgates into the tight passage of a kitchen faucet. A lot of stress trying to contain my rambling brain.
And see my skills of concision there, just now. Writing words that just don't need to be there. Good job on your first ever post as an officially soon-to-be published author, Neal.
Now, the point: This blog is coming back. It's going to be updated regularly. At least, as regularly as I get new updates about the publication process on Cedar Fort's side and marketing updates on my end. And we'll see what I feel like writing about in the absence of those.
My book "To the Saints: A Rousing Cry" is being published by Cedar Fort. It is LDS nonfiction, a collection of talks turned into very direct essays using stories from popular culture, such as Batman and Star Wars, to encapsulate certain theological principles as a means of rousing our generation from its sometime spiritual stupor.
Those are the facts. For now.
