Writer's Workout

This blog has served me well for the better part of four years.  If anyone has wandered here and benefitted by something said, or been amused or even moved to think deeply about something, all the better.

I try to post something every other week.  That turns out to be about six posts a month.    Usually that goal gets met, sometimes even exceeded.  Yet, I hardly take myself seriously here. (well, maybe sometimes)
 A blog has become crucial for a writer.  It's exercise.  Not unlike running or working out or brisk walking, writers need to work through ideas, to scratch away at possibilities, to save idea fragments before they slide out the back door of consciousness. It's healthy for a writer to start down a road and not have a destination.  Sometimes I do that here.
A blog can be a place of beginnings or endings.  An idea will sprout and go nowhere, evolve into a poem or an essay, become the basis for a short story or memoir piece, or simply live here for eternity.
This week, a few ideas are trying to emerge and transform themselves into something larger.  My fascination with how the pseudo school reform movement seems determined to use the language of militarism in its articulation of a vision is one such idea. Suddenly we have learning "targets" as if we needed to aim and hit something.  Another is the shift in our culture from hero to celebrity. The water here has muddied considerably.  Throw in role mode as well and you have a possible topic for deeper consideration.
Sometimes I start poems here.  A line will surface and in the time it takes to write it down, another 3, 4 or 5 will reveal themselves.  In my universe, a poem can be constantly changing, evolving, shifting...so once a version shows up here, it might only be "live" for a limited time.
A final function and form this blog takes involves the preservation of photos.  Pictures are worth thousands of words and preserving them electronically give them thousands more.