I am sorely tempted to post the poems I've been cranking out this month or essays I've been working on, but I'm choosing not to for three reasons: fame, fortune, and professionalism.

Fame and Fortune: Most journals won't publish previously published work, and a blog, even one that doesn't boast my full name and has probably a 100 regular readers, counts. So, if I post my work here, the editor of The New Yorker will definitely not anoint me, and the big bucks will not be coming my way. Actually, the big bucks are never going to come my way since I've probably earned 200.00 dollars in my entire professional writing career, but if I want that occasional 75.00 prize, I've got to hold out.

Professionalism: I don't mind, nay I relish, putting unfinished work out there and getting feedback on it. Giving raw or down right bad material to some friends or other writers for comments seems professional. Posting it on the internet as if it were ready for the world seems unprofessional. There is a logic flaw to this argument since here I am posting material that is only minimally crafted.

There is a poetry exercise where you set up a booth at a craft fair and write poems for people. Then you give them the poem, and they walk away. You never get to submit that poem for publication. You let it go and trust that the creativity and craft it took to create that one will help you build the skills to write more and more and more. Priming the pump. That's one thing I'm doing with this blog. Much of my writing is based on my real life, so when I tell the stories to you, I'm trusting more will well up for my other writing.

All that said, if you'd like to see some of my work and, of course, give me serious in depth critiques on it, let me know. I'll email it to you.