To Quote The Doors......
I posted my first blog piece on November 2, 2007. Today, after 165 posts and nearly 45,000 visits, I'm shutting 'er down. I'm sure at least two of you, including my late mother, will be upset by this. Mom, I'm not saying that my creative juices have dried up. In fact, my creative cup runneth over and that is why the blog must end.
I've had an adventurous life. You've read about many of my adventures on this blog. Over the years I've tried to turn these adventures into a book. I've started and stopped writing a memoir at least three times. I want to share my stories and if people find them entertaining, that's great. My real goal, however, is to wrap these stories around a message of hope - 35-years of drinking and drugging and now 20-years of sobriety. If someone reads my book and decides they can make it if that Somerstein guy made it, I will be a successful author.
About 10-years ago I advanced 10,000 words into one iteration of a memoir and presented it to a hot shit literary agent in New York City. She liked my writing but didn't think the format I used (a series of interconnected essays), was marketable. "Nobody," she told me, "will read a book of essays by an unknown author." I went home to Seattle, started the next version and pecked at it over the next 10-years. I haven't looked at it in who knows how long.
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Music has always been a major part of my life but I've never written about it. About a month ago I sat down at my keyboard and began what I thought would be a new blog post about the music in my life. I've been writing almost every day since and the piece is 10 single-spaced pages in MS Word, more than 6,500 words - way too long for a blog piece so I stopped writing and pondered, "Am I musically masturbating here or might this be a marketable piece?"
Who ya gonna call?
My life has been blessed with many creative friends and I reached out to some of them. My heart is warmed by the response I received. Several old friends, along with my gifted nephew Brien, replied almost immediately. Even though no one has yet to read the piece, I had some very productive conversations which helped lead me to this decision.
Now, this bloated blog piece will be the basis for my real memoir. Every day I awake at dawn and take my two dogs to the dog park. When they're played out, I can't wait to get home and write. No, it's more than that; I feel a burning inside of me, a burning drive to write my book.
If the medium is the message, then the music of my life is the story of my life and hopefully you'll read about it when the book is published.
So, to my faithful readers, a heartfelt thanks and a tip 'o the lucky hat. Your comments and support over the years have made a real difference in my life. To you all, a big hug and a big fat wet one on the cheek.
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