and then there is JD Salinger..,

I have just been rummaging around in my blog and note that I have 10 drafts for posts I was going to finish but didn't for one reason or another. If I went through my boxes of fabric I promise I would find at least that many garments half finished. Most all of them would have potential, just like the blog post ideas, but for one reason or another I simply do not want to return to them. You will note I determined to complete the one on Ed Kennedy and send it on it's way. When I did so I knew it was not my best effort and regardless of how I try to tell myself that I can just walk away from something that is less than my best I am fighting the urge even now to go delete and revise it. I'm not going to imply that I am or could ever be an author of the likes of Salinger, but when he died this week with all of the rumored unpublished work, I understood exactly why.

So I am not a Salinger, but I am also not yet dead. When his treasure trove of work is published we will no doubt be amazed and wish to add our own comments. Now the question comes, did he stop putting himself out there because of an inflated ego or for a lack of one? Did he just not care about our comments or did he care too much or was Catcher just too hard an act to follow, even for him. The literary world waits with baited breath and strong opinions. 

For myself I blame a certain lack of focus and discipline, both essential for a perfectionist with an ego about writing. I would go so far to say that all of us who blog are egotist for believing that what we say is worth your time, but I must add that all of my blog roll friends I have met in real life are quite charming and entertaining. They are also quite forgiving of me and all my folly and fantasy. 

I know you are patiently waiting for me to come to the point which is I need to put these fledging ideas to rest so I'm going to be pulling them up one by one and posting them in an un-Salinger-ist manner. Please keep what is worth keeping and like you always do, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.