A Template for a Life

I have a lifetime achievement award. Katie gave it to me, when she taped a copy of the first essay I wrote for publication to the wall above her desk. Life made. The essay was about conquering my fear of flying. I got a flying lesson in exchange for a writeup of the experience in the local newspaper. I’d never done anything like that before. I’d never pitched an idea, sold it, executed it, and seen it turn out exactly the way I wanted. “Now this,” I decided, “would be a fun way to live.” To experiment with my life. To use it as an example of one way -- not the way, one way -- to move through the world. And to express that so precisely a chord is struck in another soul. I once told a friend I don’t like doing something unless I can get a book out of it. She howled. I’d told her the truth, but accidentally. It isn’t an accident, though. It’s how I live. Everything is not an anecdote, granted -- let alone a book. But if you don’t allow for the possibility you’ll learn enough from a chapter to want to share it, why start that chapter at all? George Carlin once told Jon Stewart an artist has an obligation to be en route. That rings true. Would you like to read more? Subscribe to the blog? Get a preview of my next book? We’ll keep you posted, and we’ll never spam you. I hate that, too!