What's This About? What's This About. This Is What It's About.

I like to write. I like to read blogs. I’ve even blogged in the past (http://originofmorons.blogspot.com). I want to write more, but I need some kind of direction or guide.

My friend Jen is a pretty amazing person. Her writing is funny and engaging, and she’s one of the few woman to have seen my penis. It wasn’t on purpose or some life changing event – although it might have been for her – but more of the product of ill fitting boxer shorts and college dorm-living. But I digress. The year before we/she turned 30, she decided to engage a year-long writing project. Folks would suggest things she’d never done before and she’d try out those suggestions and write about it. Her blog was the highlight of most mornings. Did she do my suggestion? What crazy adventures still exist?

Eight years ago, in my despair from the election of 2000 and disappointment with an unstimulating job, I decided I was going to be a writer: a great writer. Except I can’t write fiction, I have a short attention span, and my own strong opinions interfere in anything I might write that’s newsy. I spent the weekend with a successful writer and columnist in Palm Springs. I bought all sorts of books about the field, and I wrote a monthly column in the Mighty Signal of the Santa Clarita Valley… and then I got a more interesting job, got over the election, and started teaching SCUBA diving.

Now that there are fewer elections to be pissed about and I’ve run out of enthusiasm for teaching SCUBA, it’s time to revert back to… my writing.

To develop my skills, try new things out, play with vocabulary, and keep my fingers nimble I’ve decided to return to regular blogging and this project: 500 WORDS ON…

Here’s how this works: You come back every day and get to read a brief 500 word essay on something. On what? If you want to be more involved you can help. You see, each essay will be suggested by someone else. You submit an idea and I write 500 words about it. I’ll write about anything and try to have a lot of fun with it. I promise if you suggest something, I’ll write about it.

What will I write about? I have no idea. You give me the topic, question, theme and I’ll write 500 words. I might answer your question, research the history of it, or might just write about how it makes me feel. You might get a poem featuring your suggestion, or a 2-sided debate of it. Who knows how the post will take shape, it could be a year from now. But it will take shape and it will be 500 words.

You can make suggestions – and lots of them – by sending an email to 500wordson@gmail.com. And then I’ll get started. I’ll research, write, and re-write. And then, just like this post and every one after it, I’ll write 500 words about it.