Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 38

When the drought broke

“You only fail if you stop writing.”

My mentor’s gentle eyes bore into my soul. He knew that I’d written every day for six days, just as I’d planned, and on the second 15 days I’d rested.

“You only fail if you stop writing,” he said.

“I know, I know. You’re right. I failed,” I said.

“So write.”

“I will,” I said.

“You only fail if you stop writing,” he said. “‘I will’ is not ‘I am.’”

“I know.”

“You only fail if you stop writing,” he said. “ ‘I know’ is not ‘I am.’”

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I will never be able to resist this face

Through all the turmoil, Facebook Memories today gave me this photo that I posted five years ago with the caption, “I will never be able to resist this face.” I reposted it with the new caption, “Still true.”

Even five years ago, when Willow was almost 7 years old, one of the many reasons my heart melted was knowing our canine friends have a limited time on this Earth and a day will come that she is not there to rest her chin on my armchair or knee. I will always cherish these moments.

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Why books get written

© Joserpizarro – Dreamstime.com

“I want to write a book.”

“I want to leave a mark.”

And the people who get serious about the idea write the book, and they leave a mark.

These pages are the mark. They say for now and ever, “This is who I was and what I had to say. This is what I saw and what I think it meant.”

“These were my struggles, which may resemble your struggles, and how they affected me and how I tried to overcome them, and I write them down so that you may recognize yours...

14 points of wisdom and light

A guy from Louisiana named Stan Fletcher posted the following to a Facebook group called Country Folks the other day, and a lot of people are sharing it all over the place. I think you’ll see why.

I happened to bump into these thoughts right after reading a particularly foolish political post that got my dander up. I was still stewing and thinking about going back to post a response along the lines of “Oh yeah?! Sez you!” when I saw that another friend shared Stan’s post, and No. 6 especially...

That exhilarating moment when you quit stalling

I did not make a new year’s resolution to publish two books the first weekend in 2021.

But I recommend the experience to anyone who has been sitting on the cusp of doing something.

And that’s where I was:

I had dozens of blog posts collected for a book of optimistic celebrations, a deliberate counter to the doomsayers who flood the airwaves and social media every minute.

And I had exactly two dozen bits of flash fiction set aside for an ebook.

On Thursday, New Year’s Eve, ...

Welcome to my library

Here in the place where the wind chimes peal like church bells in the Lord’s steeple,

Here in the place where mythical creatures and legends come to play,

Here in the place where traveling the stars is child’s play,

Here in the place where quests and heroes come to dance,

Here in the place where centuries of creative energy are preserved inexpertly but with quiet enthusiasm,

Here in the place of calm before and after the storm,

Here in the place where words play and metapho...

A book of celebrations

Each of us has two choices every day: Add to the beauty or add to the despair.

… to ride the light out of darkness and live in peace, striving for harmony against the discord … to celebrate our best angels or our worst instincts.

That has been a constant theme of this blog during these times, and I’ve collected many of those writings in a little book dubbed Gladness is Infectious.

I thought it might be fun to start the new year with a nice warm blast of optimism instead of further c...

Another mile marker on the road to eternity

Photo 12925907 © Alain Lacroix – Dreamstime.com

We are probably not the only species that marks time; we just aren’t smart enough to figure out other species’ systems.

Here we are, trading in one set of markers for the next — 366 days gone by this time around, and we return to the standard 365. Enough leaping for one quadrennium, says I.

It’s good to have a timeline to see where we’ve been and project where we might be going: I was born then, I graduated that year, met my mate in this s...

Another New Year’s Top Ten list

I have adapted a New Year’s habit from my friend Wally Conger, who would list a “Top 10” for the year just finished from his brushes with pop culture and life in general. Here’s my list for an infamous year.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how the Arts have taken a hit from the COVID-scare lockdowns of 2020. I had that thought as I compiled this list and realized I haven’t been to a movie theater since The Rise of Skywalker at Christmas 2019, and we attended no live concerts or theater...

… so that death can never win

This year isn’t the first during which famous and beloved people have died. A most basic fact of life is that famous and beloved people die every year.

In fact, Wikipedia has a running page called “Deaths in 2020,” listing all of the notable individuals who have died this year, and it is constantly updated. In fact, as I write this early in the afternoon of Dec. 29, 10 famous people have been added to the list. They died today.

That’s how it is. We are born; we live our lives; we die. ...