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Why keep a blog if you don’t have anything to write about? Good question. My answer is, of course, that there is ALWAYS something to write about. At least, in my case, there is. There have been many weeks that have passed by undocumented here not because I didn’t have anything to talk about but because I didn’t have a CHANCE to write about them here. Oh sure, I explored these topics in my mind, talked about them in a writer’s forum and scribbled out notes here and there, but there have just been times I couldn’t sit down every Friday night, the day I decided would be my “blogging day,” to write about them. Sometimes I’ve posted on Saturdays (and even a Sunday), but I always put things off for Fridays.

That will now change.

Some of the topics I wanted to write about here concerned current news items. And because news has that “news today, history tomorrow” thing going for it, I couldn’t post certain things I wrote here come Friday. And sometimes, I just didn’t have a free minute on account of parenting. Now, though, I’m going to post here any chance I get AND whenever I have something to write about. And not just news or stuff going on in my writing life. I WILL keep this a blog for writers and journalists, but now it’ll be more flexible.

This is also a grand idea given that I’m the parent of an overactive, thrill-seeking toddler!

I have also been offline mainly because of an out-of-state move. I was ready to crawl out of my skin after one week passed me by without working online, then another and another. I did manage to keep myself busy as a writer during this time, though, but everything I’ve been doing online – working on stories for SIGNews, submitting work, reading poetry for Skyline, putting together the next issue of my E-zine (it seems I can NEVER stop working on that thing!!) and doing interviews for my Shadowlands articles – had to wait.

Even without the Internet, though, I still got some stuff done.

If anything, the Internet has certainly helped move along my writing career. It was the Internet that landed me my first weekly paying writing gig, an Internet sale that helped me overcome my fear to write and experiences on the Web that gave me ideas for writing projects. However, I managed to maintain my sanity (and confidence) by working offline. Now not only did I have an arsenal of material to come "back to work" with, but it also kept me involved with other projects I've got going on. I also had a little help from my mobile device, which enabled me to log in to my Yahoo! E-mail account.

Here's what I did while I couldn't work online:

*Worked on book reviews. Slowly but surely, those stack of books got tackled and one review that I was NEVER satisfied with had a chance to get operated on.

*Read Steven Manchester's novel, PRESSED PENNIES. Steve's lucky; his book reached me before I hit the road. Now reading a book with a kicking, screaming toddler at your side for side for 20 hours is NOT gonna be a day in the park! But I still managed to get it done (add to this the 11 days I lived in a motel) and I used my mobile device to e-mail him my blurb.

*Wrote some poetry.

*Worked on a novel that's been languishing on my hard drive.

*Worked on some other unfinished writing projects.

*Organized all of the documents on my hard drive.

*Did research for a current nonfiction project using my mobile device (it's a Blackberry) and books at a local Borders.

*Worked on the outline for another nonfiction book.

*Read Carolyn Howard-Johnson's E-book, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER http://carolynhowardjohnson.com/ . Carolyn kindly sent me the E-book after I ran her poem in my E-zine. First we were talking about an ad trade then the next thing I know, her E-book was sitting in my E-mail account! This book is awesome and I plan to give it a push in my "shoestring book promotion" book.

*Organized all of my writing papers, projects, etc.