Just past middle-age (writing) crisis

A few of you may be wondering about whether I have taken a vow of silence — or perhaps just erratic non-silence.  Truth is, I’m trying to figure out where to invest in some things, particularly in regard to writing.

“Distinct Impressions” has been my primary tonic for self-therapy and release for many years.  There’s a little bit of everything in these pages.  For those around long enough, there’s a lot of everything in the original pages that were distributed by email and not by blog.

Recently, I’ve been contemplating branching into a multi-blog format.  I’ve already set a few up.

1. Distinct Impressions (this one) – reserved for those “ah-ha” or humorous moments.  No particular themes.  (And yes, still a great source of therapy for me.  Just think of it as my way of not tying up your time with late-night phone calls and visits.  Also easier for me since I’m predominantly introverted.)
2. Reconciliation (http://reconciliation.theobloggers.com) – concentrated on peace and reconciliation from a spiritual view.
3. 3Cs (http://jcope.wordpress.com) – nothing here yet.  I intend to focus here on more general concepts of peacemaking — useful to students, leaders, and everyday people like me who occasionally are looking for ways to get unstuck from conflict.
4. The Foster Dog Chronicles (http://myfosterdog.wordpress.com).  This one requires a little more explanation.  If you’re my FaceBook friend you might be aware (unless you’ve hidden my posts so as not to be annoyed by them), that Nancy and I are foster parents to our son’s dog, Zoe.  As I got involved in FaceBook, I was conflicted (yes, it’s true) over what to write about in this social network community.  Knowing that a good number of my “friends” are children and their family members from church, I wanted something safe but enjoyable.  Except for kids (and perhaps cats, although it’s a stretch) nothing is safer or more enjoyable than sharing the adventures of a dog.  So, using Twitter as my feed source (which means, for you non-Twitter people that I can only use 140 characters or less for any single post), I have been giving the people what they want.  In truth, my “friends” are far more enamored with Foster Dog’s life than with my own. 🙂  I’ve been encouraged to do a more in-depth treatment of some of Zoe’s adventures and thus “The Foster Dog Chronicles” blog has been established for that purpose.  Problem is, I can’t quite get past the 140 character-Twitter thing.  So, no chronicles yet.

There’s the update.  If you have thoughts let me know.  Also, I’m thinking about migrating all of my blogs over to a single site.  My friend, Brad, and I will be in conversation about that sometime later this year.  I’ll post that info here if that happens.

Oh, I’ve never really written blogs that encourage comments or interaction.  A large factor in that is that people don’t always want to comment on what I write.  And I’ve never really written blogs that many people read.   I’m not opposed to comments or questions or contrasting views.  But I would encourage you to contact me if you have preferences or suggestions regarding my current writing crisis. 🙂  Comment here or send me an email at copej@acu.edu.

Thanks for reading.