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COVID-19 PANDEMIC: JOURNALISM

 

A short P.S.A. from your friendly neighborhood journalist…
 
Your local news outlets are where it’s at right now.
 
After years of media bashing and poisoning the well of journalism by a portion of the citizenry, this crisis is showing the real value of clear information and hard truths, and the worth of local journalism and journalism in general.
 
The #COVID19 #coronavirus story is an imminently LOCAL story.
 
Support your local newspapers, sign up for newsletters, and subscribe. They (we) are out there working on your behalf to keep you informed…and safe. We are very aware of the appetite for this information during this stressful time and we are striving to do our part to get it to you.
 
We are working to get this information out there, but we are also talking to lots and lots of people to bring it to you and trying to stay safe as well.
 
We are covering how all of these shutdowns are impacting the local economy, people’s mindsets, how are people coping during these times, what are the contingency plans, when will things start up again, and every other angle of this mushrooming story.
 
The seemingly unending attacks on the press, coupled with the misinformation and disinformation out there, has created the perfect storm, sabotaging and undermining the credibility of those of us attempting to do our work on your behalf. Relying on reputable media has never been more critical and there has never been a better time to support your local journalists than right now.

 

 

I’M AN AUTHOR? YES.

 

Why do I write?

I’ve asked myself this question a lot, and the answer is undeniable.

I’ve always loved history, good stories, libraries, poetry, well written journalism…the written word in general.  Magical.  Powerful.  Motivational.  I truly believe that the written word is part of the bedrock of the foundation of society.  I love the intimacy and the stark clarity of it.  The written word has allowed us to retain and pass knowledge through the generations.  It has circulated powerful ideas that would birth a nation, allows for the sharing of ideas, memories, events, stories, and other facets of the human experience in a manner completely unparalleled by anything else.  The written word is arguably the most powerful and most influential tool humanity has ever created.  For me, this is an undeniable truth. 

I never thought I wanted to be an author growing up.  I just didn’t think it was in my cards.  I enjoyed writing, but that mostly took the shape of personal letters, or journalism stories about sporting events.  I was always reading, all sorts of things.  I read books, magazines, the daily newspaper, comics, and blogs.  I’ve always been someone that actually sees the world around me and has a genuine interest in and about it.  I observe, critically.  As life experience would have it, the more I read, the more I began to develop my own opinions on things and started to wonder exactly what I would have to say about any given topic if I were to organize my thoughts into one coherent stream.  Eventually, this idea was realized in the form of a blog about sports.  After writing this blog for about a year, I noticed I had developed a bit of a following, even though my posts were not always coming on any structured schedule.  People were actually interested in what I had to say on a subject it was my job to know something about (sports journalism is my day job).  Cool.

In 2012, I took what I learned in that “for fun” laboratory and put it to use in a new and different blog on the website for my small, for profit business that focused on personal preparedness.  I continued writing, again not really holding myself to any set posting schedule, and once again my work was received well.

While writing this blog, I came across The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly and really enjoyed it, so I decided to reach out and ask him for interview about the book.  Pressing fast forward to make a long story short, that bit of cold outreach led to Steve and I becoming friends, him urging me to aggregate my thoughts and publish a book on personal preparedness that turned into the Practical Tactical Quick Start Guide, and then joining him as a co-author on Practical Prepping Period:  No Apocalypse Required.  It sure is funny how the universe works some times.

Soon thereafter, my wife and I had our first child, and two-plus years later we had our second.  By design, this put the breaks on my attempting to write anything on deadline, but I wouldn’t have any other way.  I simply enjoy being daddy too much to let anything else take my time.  But just because I wasn’t writing didn’t mean I wasn’t still enjoying writing.  I wrote what I could whenever the motivation struck, whenever I could, but I was consistently reading…specifically novels…which was a bit of change given I had mostly read non-fiction history the majority of my adult life. 

Once again, all of this reading, paired with an abundance of time to ponder such things, led me to wonder how I might tell whatever story I was listening to at the time.  Would I describe that scene that way?  How would I write my favorite character?  Why did or didn’t the author tell me more about this piece of the story?  Ultimately, I found myself beginning to answer these questions.  Before I knew it, I had a couple of my own stories rolling around in my head and I came to the realization that I wanted to…no, needed to…share them with the world.  I didn’t know if anyone would read them, but I knew I had to write them.  

As I sit here writing this post, I have published my short story novella BANG and I am about halfway through my first novel. 

So, how do I know that I’m an author?  There are a lot of metrics used to make this determination about oneself, each is unique, and most everyone has an opinion about the topic.  But for me, it turned out to be pretty simple.  I know I’m an author because I have found my voice through actually writing, and I have stories and characters in my head that have to come out.  It’s funny, but when I can’t get the character’s voices in my head to shut up, that’s when I know I have to start writing down what they’re saying because they have a story to tell.

So for me, all of this was a natural progression.  It’s been quite the adventure so far, and like my stories I don’t claim to know where it’s headed, but I sure am looking forward to finding out and I appreciate you for coming along for the journey.