"Keep away from people who try to belittle your dreams.


 Small people always do that, but the really great ones 


make you feel that you too, can become great."

Mark Twain

An interesting quote from James Lane Allen: 


Man's rise or fall, success or failure, happiness or unhappiness depends on his attitude... a man's attitude will create the situation he imagines.

Been dealing with a case of 'the block'.  Put writing on the shelf to deal with health issues in the family.  Trying to ramp up to regain momentum, cranked out about 600-700 words, and some how lost them attempting to save.  Don't know what key stroke I made to do the damage, but it was a momentum killer.  Back to ground zero trying to restart.  Looked at the file of old pieces and came across the following:

Staring at a blank page

Awaiting inspiration

Millions of issues

Demand prosaic comment

When the ideas start to flow

Will the words be worth the ink?

Will they ever touch

The people with the problems?

Or does drafted metered verse

Merely free you of your guilt?

Through your poems

Do you turn your back on real life?

Wrote that back in 1971 and rereading it convinced me that for a long time my writing was an escape.  But now I am convinced that I have something to say.  There are parts of history that have been obscured which need to be addressed.  Indeed issues that"demand prosaic comment.  So screw the loss of 700 words!  They were lost in the computer, but they are still in my skull vault, and will be recaptured and inserted into chapter 17.

Been otherwise occupied in life, but now anxious to get back in the swing.  Writing more frequently, and posting to see who is out there who might have an interest in Irish history (circa1633-1700)