About six or seven years ago, I was asked to write a regular religion column for the local newspaper. It got me great local “exposure” and they didn’t care what I wrote as long as it was “religious.” The bad side of it was they didn’t pay me anything, and in the end, wouldn’t even give me a free subscription.
But addicted as I was to writing and exposure, I continued writing the column every other week for about 18 months. I got a lot of comments from people in the community who read something I wrote, most of them positive, sometimes with a correction (“Don’t you know there are 32 teams in the NFL? Not 28!”) And once when I wrote about the Antichrist I got a rise out of some of my Adventist colleagues, which is always fun.
After 18 months, I was not only disgruntled about the fact that they wouldn’t even give me a complementary subscription, I was running out of things to say. I remember at one point writing about how I hate traffic in Miami, and how I especially hate people who don’t use turn signals when they turn. The trick was always turning it around so that the end message was somehow “religious.”
I got as a creative as I could, but finally I quit. When they asked me why, I told them that I had simply run out of ideas.
Fast forward to present date. I have committed to being faithful to my blog. I started off waxing educational about the nuances of writing, sharing stuff I wrote, and trying to be exceptionally funny. Now I am down to scratching my head, adjusting my chair and writing the first thing that comes to mind. I don’t know if anyone like what I read. But I do know that I need to write something. At least you have an idea what I am doing these days. Wading through drivel to find something profound to share….
Yesterday I put my magazine to bed. I am hoping that will signal a more significant commitment to my writing projects. That may happen as soon as Monday. Or even today. When that happens, perhaps I will have more to share.
Right now I feel like, as I told a student many years ago when describing their article, “vacuous noise.”
The Great Adventure 
Complimentary, complementary, contemporary, contemporaneous, critical, critique, crimp, cutoff….stop! Oh well, at least one person reads your stuff