The appearance of the fourteenth issue of David Burton's Catchpenny Gazette, a nifty pdf zine containing various worthy writings, among them a selection from this journal, gives me the chance to pop in and wonder whether I have hit the blogging wall.

It isn't so much my running out of of things to say, but rather the wavering of my conviction that anything I have to say is of interest -- or of sufficient interest to write about in a public forum.

To think oneself a bore is not entirely a bad thing. The world is filled with writers who are certain that everything that happens to them, every thought that occurs to them, is entitled to the largest possible audience. Many of these people are, by any rational measure, bores and they would benefit humanity more by taking a hard look in their mirrors than by continuing to pound their keyboards.

One reason fiction writing is appealing is that the truth of the writer's life is so often boring. It can be easier to make something up than to dig out the interesting bits of one's personal reality. (And, no, you can't simply make up an autobiography. That's just flat out lying, regardless of what Oprah might say.)

As it happens, the most interesting thing I do these days is write fiction, when I have the chance, and the end result is, I hope, more interesting than the process. My daily affairs are tedious beyond belief.

True, I have a cat and, as we all know, everything a cat does is fascinating. I could, if I were so inclined, fill this journal with nothing but the doings of Sabrina. I won't, because I don't want her getting a big head.