I Am Back, and Determined to Make This Blog Succeed

After fading out for about eight months while wrestling with some health issues, I decided to restart a writing blog under a new name. However, when I logged on to Blogger earlier today, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this blog still existed. Somehow I was under the impression that I had deleted it earlier this year. Clearly I did not, and I am glad.

There is a new spin off from the National Novel Writing Month contest called the National Novel Reading Month, or NaNoReadMo. This new event challenges its participants to read one novel each week -- and comment on it in some manner to family, friends, or others – for four consecutive weeks. While I am sitting this year’s reading event out, it is inspiring me to increase the amount of fiction and nonfiction reading I do, and to begin writing coherent review commentaries on what I have read, with these commentaries to be posted here. Over time, my personal commitment is to develop my review writing skills to the point that one or two a month compare favorably (in terms of writing quality and length) to the reviews found in The New York Review of Books. A second focus will be the writing and posting of shorter, highly polished reviews as well. Along the way, other types of writing , writing contests and other writing-related topics will be explored in this blog as well.