WRITING

I first described my introduction to blogging In January 2021. Jane and I had moved to Trinity Terrace, a high-rise retirement center in downtown Fort Worth in May 2020. I was not thrilled with giving up my place in the country, but Jane has subsequently (almost!) convinced me that it was/is our “destiny” – that it is in God’s plan for our lives; that without the move I may never have discovered a penchant for creative writing.

I think she is right!! One of the friends I gained early in our residence here is Ray Smilor. Ray quickly rose to a place on my Best Friends Forever list. Ray is a PhD, on the Executive MBA faculty at TCU, and is an international lecturer in business circles as well as educational. Ray employs blogs as an instrument in his professional life and is directly responsible for my taking up the practice.

Repeating some of the January ’21 introduction: several years ago, I had done some genealogical work and wrote a brief autobiography. Anticipating that the grandchildren might not find that to be interesting, I decided to feed it to them one story at a time: Voila, one story = one blog!

The life-stories of course are all non-fiction, but to make them interesting I needed to refine my vocabulary. I had spent my thirty-five-year career in technical and business pursuits and my old vocabulary reflected that. Imagine my own surprise (and Jane’s) to find that I had a whole “other” vocabulary! In one of my early compositions, I described a country meadow as “verdant with spring grasses interwoven with bright flowers.” I had never imagined that as an engineer I could do that! In another case, the wife of another engineer {also residents here}, after reading my Ode to St. Valentine, stated “I didn’t know an engineer could be a romantic.”

Over these past two years plus, both my audience and my selections of subject matter have expanded. I’ve written personal stories, book reviews and historical essays. I don’t play bridge (as many residents here do), I don’t play golf; creative writing has saved my sanity. In addition to the afore-mentioned writings, I have started a book of fiction. This has been a whole new experience. Creating the story means creating a list of characters, strangers to me at first but given a persona through my own imagination. When asked about the book, I reply very simply “it’s a story of tragedy and redemption.” I’m cautious about describing it fully – the ending may be different by the time I get there!