Here in the United States, it’s Memorial Day weekend — a time that has always perplexed and frustrated me.
By becoming the first Monday holiday of summer, the weekend stole the show from Independence Day as the “unofficial start of summer.” In so doing, it lost much of its significance. I’ve spent more than a quarter century as an advocate to bring back its respect and dignity.
I explained that in Friday’s post, one of three this week that are contemporary rather than prompted by my memoir/journal entries. The month’s absence from the journal was a blessing and a curse. It took me off the anniversary dates, but in doing so it also made the blog less tied to the anniversary.
Now the journal entries can appear whenever they fit into the schedule, which is an easier pace for me to maintain. This also allows me to schedule date-appropriate entries, such as responses to community events and posts appropriate to a particular date or holiday.
In coming weeks, I’ll continue this mix of blog entries because they’re relatively quick to turn around and I can write them in chunks. Meanwhile, in background, I continue to work on larger projects that require longer blocks of time.
Sometimes, it’s a combination. These journal entries have entered a phase now there I’ll need to do some research, and that will bring me more into contact with my past. I’ll be networking with contemporary resources while I continue to work on the Bubble Wrap and Houdini projects.
Things are starting to come together. Thanks for being here with me as they do.
In case you missed it …
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: Passing by the bar
Reading Time: 2 minutes I didn’t have the necessary devotion, interest, motivation, or drive to continue my legal studies. Had I subconsciously decided not to return to the law?
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Budding Writer, 1979: Shifting gears
Reading Time: 2 minutes Biking through the countryside gave me a new view of the paper’s coverage area, and time to think about the stories I wanted to tell.
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: No strings attached
Reading Time: 2 minutes Does a reporter create a conflict of interest by accepting publicity work from the subject of a story? It could have become a tangled web.
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Budding Writer, 1978: ‘I Do Care’
Reading Time: < 1 minutes As a writer, I should care more about what other people think and less about what they think of me.
Yours is the first blogsite that I have found, in almost 13 years, which warns of reading time. Thanx for following. I hope I can keep up. 😀
Thanks! The plugin is Reading Time WP by Jason Yingling. I think your pace of about three posts a week is optimal but I’m on a roll…
Years ago I read a site named ‘Snotting Black,’ by a young woman stationed in Cairo for a year. The black snot was from the camel shit, dust and smoke in the air.
Each of her posts always showed a reading time. When I asked how she determined it, she said she just read her own prose before posting, recorded the time it took her, and added a minute or two for those unfamiliar with it. 😀
‘Snotfunny! Reading aloud also helps writers find errors — typos, dropped words, mixed metaphors, and things that just don’t sound right.
One of my friends used to keep his blog posts to exactly 321 words. By his measure, that was the optimal number of words per minute for most readers, and he figured most people could afford him a minute of their time.
Oh, I Know. I do It all the time. 😀