Sad to look back on my climb to YouTube immortality and realize it’s been more than a year since I last accomplished anything worth writing about.

Technical problems, as in not understanding the information given by means of on-line tutorials, started my decline into apathy. I hate to admit how long it took me to realize that the open source software I downloaded last year for video editing was a newer version than the one being used in the tutorials.

When you live in Wisconsin the words “Upon further review” have an honored storied place in your memory as they harken back to a day when a referee’s call on the field was overturned and the Packers went on to defeat the Bears.

In my case the phrase means that after a significant lapse of time I finally went back and “further reviewed” those tutorials. That’s when it hit me! Their screens looked similar to but not the same as mine. The means by which you create effects in your video clips had undergone a trans procedure tantamount to a surreal software affirming healthcare procedure.  

I have decided to try my hand at something a little more familiar to me, writing vs video editing, and have opened a Substack account. Capitalizing on my wordsmithing skills, I am committed to learning a new set of technological guidelines in order to indulge my need to teach long after my kids are raised and my management career is over. I just can’t help myself.

To do this I am sacrificing another dream. For several years the bulk of my writing time has been dedicated to the topic of a Christian work ethic. This project started as a series of e-mail messages to my adult children with the intent of staying in touch while they pursued their own careers. Over time the sum total of these messages exceeded 150,000 words, which gave me the idea of seeking out a publisher who would immortalize my creativity by way of transforming my prose into a book. I was met with a polite indifference at best.

The first thing I was told was that no publisher would accept a manuscript of that length, which has grown in substance since I first made my plans known. I accepted this gracefully and divided my composition into four parts or four books. You would think that the existence of a series would be appealing to any publisher with this innate promise of sequels.

The second thing I learned was that my idea was not marketable. And the third was that I lacked name recognition. It was such a blow to my sense of self-worth.

So I am turning to Substack as my alt-publisher since I am too poor, and or too cheap, to indulge my ego in any pay to publish scheme. You can find me among the unknown gifted who seek recognition for our originality of thought. My first Substack “publication” is entitled The Heavens and the Earth in keeping with book one of my four-part series. The plan is to post a segment from each chapter in order to avoid overwhelming anyone with my theological insights. And there are plenty of those. Believe me.