I’ve been contemplating this blog about writing for a while now. The problem is I don’t know if I’m qualified or who will read it or what direction it will take.

Interesting, huh?

Are you still with me?

All I know is I feel better when I’m writing; it’s like there is purpose in my life when I am moving from a wilderness of words and thoughts into The Collective.

No, I’m not talking about the Borg of Star Trek fame. I’m talking about words, large masses of them that make up sentences and paragraphs that are worthy of assimilation into short stories and novels, maybe even blogs. And I, not Janeway, am captain of the starship that puts them in the right place so my wordy wilderness takes meaningful shape and is accepted in the civilized world.

Writing comes natural to me. I knew back in high school that I was destined to write. You should have seen me in my eleventh-grade typing class, straining over keys with my right hand casted up to the forearm because I broke my thumb playing football. I still don’t strike the “B” like normal people do, because of that damn cast. Shh! That’s a secret I’ve held on to for more than fifty years. Don’t tell anyone!

It’s hard to believe I’ve been writing for more than fifty years, half a century. I knew it was to be my vocation at a very young age and never gave a thought about how little journalists got paid. It didn’t matter; I loved what I was doing. And eventually, the peanuts I was paid at the beginning slowly turned into cashews, pistachios and eventually those pricey macadamias the Hawaiians love.

I didn’t start writing fiction until I retired. It was then I realized writing was the only way to ease my addiction to words. It also rescued me from hours and hours of Star Trek reruns.

As I began to assimilate into my new writing career, I invested in a home computer and everything. I even created an office where I could stare at a lighted monitor for hours at a time, sometimes late into the evening. Captains Janeway and Picard called me from another room on occasion but I trained myself to ignore them for more important endeavors. I no longer cared that Q was trying to pull the wool over Jean Luke’s eyes. I’m was assimilating.

Throughout the process, Microsoft Word and now Office 365 have been my solid partners. They give me all the bells and whistles I need to forge onward into this often-unfriendly frontier. If you are new to this writing business and not using Office 365, save your pennies and invest. It’s the best sidekick a writer can have.

Speaking of sidekicks and tips, try this one. I managed to keep everyone in my household away from my computer because my keyboard looked used and abused. I had touched those loving keypads so often all the color was worn off. Amateurs don’t jump in and type when blank keys stare back at them.

Recently, though, disaster struck. Daylight had passed as I put the finishing touches on one of the chapters in a recent novel. Suddenly, my beloved keyboard died. I replaced the batteries, checked the wi-fi connection and blew a year of dust from beneath my unidentifiable black buddies who represent all the letters of the alphabet. Still it did not work.

I began to hyperventilate. My partner in assimilation had passed and left me at mid-thought, mid-sentence, mid-chapter. The wilderness had returned. The words were there but I had no way of putting them in order. I felt like Chacotay and Tom Paris, intercepted and held captive by the Cube. I had no hope of assimilation if the nearby Target store was closed.

As luck would have it, I was able to secure a keyboard just before closing and my joy returned. It has been going on for days and weeks now and I am becoming more trusting of the new keyboard, even though fond memories of its lifeless predecessor linger.

Here’s another secret. I haven’t disposed of it yet. It sits in a box in the closet of my office, resting on top of a video cassette player and a dozen home-made VHS tapes of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Please, don’t tell my family.

Until we meet again, I go boldly from the wilderness to where no man has gone before. And may your writing live long and prosper.





(Gerald L. Guy is the author of nine novels and countless short stories. He lives in Palm Coast, Florida. When he’s not writing, he can be seen walking the beaches, scenic trails and steamy sidewalks of Flagler County. Now that he has assimilated, his blog appears regularly on his website: www.storiesbyguy.com)