Gerald Jacobs, Author of Books And Intrepid Blogger

All I wanted to do

 My Fledgling Writing Career

It’s not uncommon for me to be asked questions about writing books. People often follow up by telling me they want to write a book. Some think they have something to say, others tell me they have been thinking about writing a book but don’t know where to start. Typically the first thing I ask is, have you written anything lately except for birthday cards or thank you notes? A blush or the classic shoe stare often follows their ‘no’ answer. My next question is, do you frequently read books for entertainment? When that question is met with a blank stare, my comment is, how do you think you can write a book if you don’t even like reading them?

I always enjoyed Reading

Some of my favorite childhood memories were of reading my favorite novels. One of the things that attracted my wife and me to one another was a shared love for reading books. To this day, I would venture not a day goes by when she and I don’t have our noses stuck in a book for a spare moment of relaxation unless we’re in bed with the flu or something.

I don’t only read fiction, I read everything, including periodicals. I just plain like to read. It’s the most fun I can have while sitting in a chair.

Maybe I Was A Late Bloomer

It kind of makes one wonder why I didn’t write my first book before I became seventy-one. I’m tempted to take the easy way out and say I’m a late bloomer. Could be. Being a little more introspective than that, I have to say, it took me that long to slow down enough to sit still and write consistently. That doesn’t mean I didn’t write. I just didn’t write books. Yet. . .

I was not yet able to sit still long enough to write a complete book or even a well-conceived short story. I have finally outgrown that and have produced a couple of books and have a new one in progress.

Click on the link I provided to check out what I’m up to with books and short stories.

I write what I think about

And sometimes thinking is a waste of time. I keep doing it anyway.

For me, thinking was more of a hobby. Sometimes I came up with interesting thoughts. Sometimes I kept trying to think and nothing happened. That can be therapeutic too.

Of course, I flattered myself and considered it a form of meditation. I continued, thoughtlessly thinking.

I May Have Been Ahead Of My Time

For many years there were things I read or heard about that captured my attention. I often wrote my thoughts and ideas as a way to preserve those thoughts and to archive them lest I forget them. I didn’t lend any thought to memorializing them on a website. They started way before that.

Today, they are known as Blogs. We used to call them essays or sometimes monographs. I even wrote for a local monthly periodical for a couple of years. Writing was in my blood.

A Little About My Blog Site

When I started writing in earnest, it took almost a year to figure out the value of a robust blog site. I tend to be a slow learner at times.

I learned how to build my website in WordPress. That taught me about Blogs. This is curious, you get only one blog page in WordPress. All the blog posts are contained within that specific page.

Well . . . That wasn’t suitable. I can tell you that!

Since I folded my second website into this one, it made it even less so than ever. I could live with only one Home page, but not one Blog page.

Many of my different blogs don’t relate to my author site at all.

I also have guest blogs from time to time as well.

I’m working on a solution to this. I haven’t solved it yet, but I will. I love to game the system! Here’s the best I could come up with for a solution;

I have a separate page called “Forum” It’s now my secondary Blog page. Here’s the link.

I set it up similar to a Blog page. It tends to be a bit more personal. I also designed it to contain Blogs for us seasoned citizens.

I do get wordy with my blogs. They often average 800 to 1100 words. To give you an idea, many other blog posts are often a mere 3 or 4 hundred words! Hell, I’m not even warmed up that early into a thought.

Here’s The Link To The Regular Blog Page

And also, a little about me

I started my third career after retiring and closing my real estate brokerage. That took more than a year. It was harder than quitting smoking!

I enjoyed writing daily. It filled a creative drive within me. I wanted to write books. Imagine my disappointment when I found most people didn’t write books to be an author. They wrote books to give them creds for their website or blog. 

I found out why quickly enough. If your name isn’t Stephen King or Clive Cussler, nobody in the publishing game wants to know your name.

So I scratched my head and picked myself up and took a close look around. Making money, although always encouraging, was not my main intent. I just wanted to write books. This Home page reflects how much I have expanded beyond that.

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