Does this count as a blog post?

I have this lifelong habit where I set out to do something, assign an unrealistic goal to it, and then quit when I miss my goal by a hair. For instance, I'll think "I'm going to write in a journal every day", and then stop completely because I missed one day of writing. Nobody else ever hears about the goal, but inside I know I fell short, and it can never be made right. Its not a very effective approach to long-term projects, and I've given up on numerous endeavors over the years because of it: learning Arabic; playing guitar; and becoming a rock star, to name three.

I've been pretty good about posting to this blog since late March, when I attended the Story Studio Writer's Retreat. I really should give them a shout out, it jump started my writing big time, and connected me with two fabulous ladies who have since become my writing buddies. Every week - or as often as we can, we meet for a writing date. Seriously. For about an hour and a half all we do is write. No talking, no goofing around, we just sit there with our laptops and our notebooks and do the deed. Then, if we have something we feel is ready to be read out loud, we share. Its pretty awesome, and even though I've missed more than one meeting, I haven't quit doing it. It gives me hope that this writing thing will stick. Its such a big deal to me, in fact, that I still have in my wallet the receipt from Cafe 28, a Cuban restaurant on Irving Park Road, where the three of us dined on March 28th, the second night of the retreat. I don't hang on to a lot of receipts, but this one has sentimental value - it's a memento of the night that I had dinner with two strangers who I hoped would become writing friends... and then they did.

All of this is to say that I have a lot of ideas tumbling around in my head, but none of them feel ready to publish here yet. Normally I would just wait a day or two, but I'm leaving town tomorrow for rural Vermont, where I will have neither Internet access nor cell phone service, so if I want to get at least three posts in during the month of August, its now or never. If I'm lucky I'll get something in when I return on August 31st. In case you were wondering, the magic number that I have assigned myself for this blog is 4 posts per month. Anything less and I start to feel bad about myself. So here it is, blog post number 3 for the month of August. I hope to return from the wilds of the green mountain state with endless material.

Until then,

JP