Mood: blurry

A few of you — and I do mean a few, given that many readers have understandably moved on — might have seen the handful of posts here over the past couple of weeks and wondered, is Dodger Thoughts back?

And the answer to that is yes. And no. And I’m not sure.

I don’t have a plan. I have ideas and goals and dreams and desires, and a tenuous grasp on how best to execute those. (Also of note: I have a day job.)

Having emerged from the intense process of writing Brothers in Arms — about 120,000 words, drafted and re-written and edited in under six months from February through July — and with a year gone by since I ran Dodger Insider for the Dodgers, I found I missed some of the immediate gratification of blogging. Then you add the fact that I have a book to promote, and it makes sense to rev up the Dodger Thoughts engines, to discuss the book, to comment about the current Dodgers when I see fit, and also to give myself the freedom to write more in the Life category. (Super-sharp eyes might have noticed that with the site’s new template, I also made the first change in the Dodger Thoughts motto since it was founded in 2002.)

At the same time, I have another book idea that predates Brothers in Arms that I’m keen to move forward on. I’ve been gathering string for it for a long while, and over a couple of weekends in January began sketching out an outline. And while that sketch only made me realize how very, very early I remain in the process, I do want to work my way through it all. And that means that I shouldn’t completely give my spare writing energy over to this site.

It’s funny — I get an idea that I think might make a good Dodger Thoughts post, but then I realize that I might want to bank it for the unwritten book. In fact, no lie: I had an idea while I was writing this paragraph. It’s hard. I mean, it wouldn’t change the world if I wrote a post about the idea I just had, but it might feel good just to write it. And now that I’ve held it back, who knows if the world will ever see it? That’s the kind of stuff I wrestle with.

Anyway, for the near future, I expect Dodger Thoughts to be a mix of all these different impulses. You’ll see me here more frequently than in 2017, but not daily. It might feel random. It’s been a year since I really flexed my blogging muscles, and I might need to, to quote Matthew Brock from NewsRadio, “shake out the sillies.”

No matter what happens, for whatever reason, it feels good to communicate.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments about what’s happening in your lives, the triumphs and the struggles, the things you are doing, or that you want to do or that you wish you weren’t doing.