I should write more

"To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly – need to write more." -- Stephen King.


 I should write more. I know, I know, I write a lot for my job as a legal reporter for Law360 -- 1,175 articles and counting, just in the past 21 and a half months. But non-subscribers (i.e., my friends, i.e. YOU, dear, hypothetical reader) aren't allowed to see that stuff, and even if they could, it would probably bore them to tears. Unless they were really into government contracts regulations (and space law! I sometimes write about space law!).

I should write more. That's the subtitle of this blog, which I started in Spain and abandoned there. It was a lot easier to "write more" when I had a 15-hour a week job in a small town with high unemployment and low cost of living. I kept meaning to get back to it after getting my feet on the ground in New York, but I always seem to find more ways to stay just busy enough that writing seems like an awful chore. I am in a band, I work 10-hour days, I party, I play D&D weekly, I'm in a book club ... you know, life. Plus, I just got a computer with games on it. So writing, and basic living tasks have taken a hit. I do laundry less than once a week, despite living in an apartment with a washer and drier (also, a baby, but that's another story). My diet has reverted to college-era fare of Swanson's chicken pot pies, Chef Boyardee ravioli and Hot Pockets -- anything that I can purchase cheap and consume quickly after returning home at 11pm from wherever the day has taken me. (Hot Pocket!).

There's just not enough time in a week to do everything you need to do, and also play Skyrim.

But here's the thing, I still have this blog, so I'm going to use it. Is it still going to be a space for a poem a day? Heck, no. But instead of throwing it away and trying to rebrand myself, I'll keep "The Saddest Viking" name and the "I should write more" theme, and, you know, just write more. Maybe about national security policy, stuff that is interesting but irrelevant to my professional career ("What's the contractor angle?" "This doesn't read like a legal story."). Maybe about music (I'm trying to freelance for the arts section of a Brooklyn paper -- no, scratch that THE Brooklyn Paper).  Maybe poems, or bits of stories, or funny stuff I find on the internet. Maybe just stuff I would've posted to Facebook, but in slightly longer form. Who knows?  But I know this -- I should write more.