Dear Mark Twain You Should Have Been A Blogger

“Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

‎”You can’t reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you.” Mark Twain

Dear Mark,

I must admit that I am not sure if I should call you Mark or refer to you as Samuel because I don’t know what your preference is/was. For all I know your good friends and family called you Sammy or some other sort of nickname that I am not privy to. Perhaps the information is located in a biography but I can’t say that I have ever come across it.

Since this is my blog and I am a writer I am going to continue this pleasant little fiction of ours and say that we are good friends. Or maybe it is more appropriate to say that I view you as a mentor that I can look to for advice on a variety of topics, writing being just one of them.

Some people suggest that the dead never truly leave and I wonder if perhaps my using your name has attracted your attention. Perhaps you are reading this and wondering what a blog is. The easiest explanation is to say that it is similar to a public journal that people can read and comment on.

I often refer to myself as a daddy blogger meaning that I am a writer who share thoughts, stories, feelings and ideas about being a father. But I don’t limit myself to writing about parenting. I blog about writing, technology, sports, politics and religion. In short I write about whatever interests me.

That helps me to maintain my interest and ensures that I never run out of topics to blog about. It also helps to make sure that my kids don’t come here and find 10,000 posts about them because I could do that easily. They are a never ending source of material and not bad for SEO either.

Although I have to tell you that I hate bloggers who focus solely upon that. It is the sort of writing that reminds me of the plague. Single minded of purpose, destructive and dull. If there were a vaccine that I could use to eradicate it I would.

I have been at this game for years now but it wasn’t until relatively recently that I decided that I would try to monetize my blog and do something with my fiction.

That is a long winded way of saying that I want to get paid to be a writer. Actually I do get paid for my writing but it is not the kind of writing that I want to do so I decided to do something about it.

I am doing something different with my fiction. I am posting it as I go and letting people comment on it. It is an unconventional approach and not necessarily the smartest way of doing things. The readers aren’t seeing a finished copy and are providing feedback on unfinished work.

Some of them hate it. More than a few have told me that there are serious problems with it and that they don’t believe that the characters would act as I have portrayed them. But I have received lots of contradictory comments too. There are people who love it and tell me that they can’t wait to see what I come up with.

I expect that you would have much to say on this and that back in your day critics were critics. I appreciate the feedback but I don’t let it stop me from moving ahead with things. I take it for what it is worth and move on.

That is because this story has been inside me for years and I have to get it out. I wonder if that is how you felt. Was Huckleberry Finn written because the words refused to stay stuck inside your head or did you have some other motivation.

I don’t know how this story is going to end. I haven’t mapped it out. I am letting the characters tell the tale and having a lot of fun doing so.

Got a lot more to share with you but I just received an email with a new writing assignment and have got to run.

Thanks,

Jack

P.S. That quote of yours at the top of the page is one that I love. I always take it to mean be your own man. Too bad you are not around to discuss it, would love to hear your thoughts.