What the blog?

Right-o. I've been away from this blog for some time, three months. I've had my reservations. First, it's tough to blog when there are no followers. One reason there are no followers is that I have not promoted Brackish Currents. And why is that? Fear. Lack of confidence in my own writing. The bigger reason I have not sought an audience is that I'm not sure anyone would want to peer into my world all that much.

After all, as Experimental Honesty implies, what I have to say may not follow a coherent path. On the other hand, without readers, this blog is neither experimental nor honest.

So, onward. This blog explores two interweaving currents:
In one stream is the progress of a novel I'm writing, Drum. The book loosely follows the story of a disappearance in my family in 1976. Several elements of the story are factual, but the plot articulates a different path than mine, travels to places the writer has not. It is fiction, and I stand by that fact.

The other stream is my own progress as a writer and as a human being. I have implicated myself deeply in the novel, and even as I endeavor to pull myself out of the story, it is more and more a reflection of my own tenuous existence. I have questions--we have questions that we choose not to answer. How is it, for instance, that we live past a moment in time, but continue to exist within that moment? Yikes, did I say that?

Together, these currents create a certain mix in which a finite number of organisms can survive; some perish, some flourish. We live in the past as much as the present, and how we reconcile one with the other is one of the bigger questions we ask.

So, I've not been writing in Brackish Currents because I wasn't sure where I was going with it. Now, I'm seeking a readership who will give me some affirmation that I'm headed in the right direction.

The preceding entries have recently been uploaded from my journal as a gesture of commitment to keep going. I invite you to meander my mind, become a member of the blog and leave thoughtful comments.