Hey, Simon: One of the immediate rewards of creating my blog is meeting you. It's taken me 73 years to think of myself as a writer. I've been a songwriter most of my life, but somehow that didn't seem to make me qualify. What I've discovered as I've accepted that I am a writer (and I guess I can call myself an Award Winning Writer, as my book recieved an award as one of the six finalists in the National New Book Awards for 2009) is that in the long run, it's all story telling. Not all story tellers are writers, but all writers are story tellers.

My new blog is a wonderful blessing for me. It's a channel for putting down in words the stories I see all around me. It's not that different from the introduction to a song.

Don't assume that you aren't a writer, Simon. If you enjoy telling stories, you have the basic foundation to be a writer.

You might try it some time...

Jerry