Saturday, August 26, I promised myself I would write something, anything, as we say down South, even a little bit, every day. This serious intention came about after a trip to Barnes & Noble, where I bought several books on how to write.

Repetition, forming the habit of writing, was emphasized over and over, but I sit here three days after that self promise, feeling a little dumb or at least empty, because I haven't yet thought up a great novel. Do all aspiring writers suffer from these dry spots? The books say that they do, and the way to not stay stuck there is to write anything, just to get beyond it. So here goes.

I am in a love affair with books. I don't go to book stores often because I know I'll walk out with several, and a few days ago that's exactly what I did, but all of them weren't to teach me how to write.

My old Bible is easy to read. It has helpful extras that explain things I'm studying about. I like wide margines to write comments and notes on. But it's big and heavy, and I wanted one that isn't, to take to church.

But, just like the difficulty I had choosing the writing books, I couldn't narrow the choice of Bible to only one, and came home with two. One is a New Living Translation Touch Point Bible, a quick reference Bible, and the other is The Message, New Testament Psalms and Proverbs in Contemporary Language. My rationale for getting both is, if I'm going to buy several books on writing, isn't it allright to spend money on the most important book ever in the whole world, the one that can teach us how to deal with the blocks and the dry spots in our lives.