To the faithful few who read on, I salute you. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read what I have penned. I am well aware it is not much at present. I can only say that sooner or later, good things are coming.

In my last update I suggested that this blog might get ugly from time to time, not out of anger, but due to the inevitable trials and tribulations every artist must endure in order to birth new art into the world. Such is this update.

Make no mistake about it, that's what I believe I'm doing.  All these technological hiccups, all the ventured emails requesting help which were never returned, all the rewritten stanzas, couplets and paragraphs which seemed to be going someplace divine but ventured into incoherent babble. It's all labor pains of a sort I think.

Robert Frost once said that he never started a poem knowing how it was going to end. There's something both comforting and frightening about that statement. It's comforting because, like Frost, I'm not 100% certain where I'm going when I put pen to paper either. Frightening because when you're driving the back roads of creativity at night with the headlamps off, it's easy to end up in a ditch along the side of the road. Tragedy lies to the left, failure to the right and somewhere up ahead is the distant town of serenity. You've never been there before in this particular vehicle and fuel is running low, but if you goose the gas pedal, stay off the brake and grip the steering wheel just so, you just might make it.

I'll be honest, right now it is difficult to stay in the proper frame of mind to move forward on this project. I was laid off from my job a few months ago and new job opportunities do not seem to be forthcoming. It is difficult to breath life into this project when the overwhelming burden of the job search is always upon me. Additionally, I have discovered that most of the friends in my life whom I had filed under "true blue" were mis-filed. It seems I should have filed them under "fair-weather". I have learned the truth of the statement, "Nobody loves you when you're down" for certain.

But, while difficult I have also come to view this project as a necessary task. For some time now I have needed a way to steer my mind through the creative rapids which is my ever churning imagination. This project is my rudder. I'm going someplace for a change and not just sailing around the same old enchanted islands and colorful levee's. In the past it was enough for me to pen beautiful words, but now I want to craft work which is not only beautiful, but which also coalesces into something which resonates with the heart of the reader and dreamer alike. As you can imagine it is no easy task.

We are further away from publication than I would like at this point, but it still feels like it's going to happen. This is admittedly a strange sensation. I am fairly confident there is no money or fame to be had with the publication of this collection. Most of the people I have mentioned it to only gave the most perfunctory of disinterested nods. Yet, this work seems intent on being borne into this world and it seems convinced that I am to be the conduit.

As I mentioned previously, I'm a fairly good starter of creative projects, but am a pretty poor finisher. If this was just an idea I had to put a few bucks in my pocket, or if it was a chance to bend an ear or two with a poem, I'd probably have given up on it by now. But as I struggle through the collected works I cannot shake the feeling that there is something of merit and value here. It just feels potent and worthy of being shared. I'll say more about this in the future. For now, please trust that I am writing with a higher purpose in mind, one which even I am not fully aware. This is OK with me by the way, my job is to do the work and I aim to get it as close to it's original untarnished state as I possibly can.

Well, that's it for now.

Stay tuned for more updates about how the work is coming along.

No snippets yet, but I hope you'll trust me when I say I think I'm going to someplace good.

Stay focused out there and I hope you have a wonderful tomorrow.

Faithfully,

Stance