It’s A to Z time!

I’ll tell you in advance–I’m going to cheat.

We are on the brink of April, which means it’s time for bloggers in the know to dust off their keyboards and prepare to write 26 posts on a theme. It’s also traditional to do a theme reveal.

In the past four years, I have covered the Olympics, accounting, the Renaissance, and the Silk Road. Heavy, heavy history the last two years. Yes, I know you love it — but I have to do something a litttttttttle different. Can’t be all history, all the time!

How about a little science, and I promise to make it science-y history.

DINOSAURS.

You kind of got it from the picture, I suspect.

I’ve been threatening. I’ve been pleading. I’ve been hinting for the last few years that I might just write about dinosaurs because I love ’em, and I hope you will, too. I have trekked across half a dozen dinosaur museums, as many fossil beds, gift shops, exhibits and so on. Often dragged my wife, sometimes my kids. (Does Big Foot count? Of course not! What about Godzilla? Well, let’s wait till the letter G and find out!)

Why put myself through this?

I gotta tell ya. This is not an easy lift. It’s a month-long commitment, and I’m going into a month where I already have commitments. My master’s thesis is due this coming week (and it needs work!!!!) I agreed to an editing/QA gig on an upcoming business and economics course, I’m still doing people’s taxes, preparing for a conference. I don’t have time for this!

Writers, you know the drill. If you want to write, you got to write.

Why do it? I wrote about the Olympics during the pandemic, it led to a book. Wrote about accounting–guess what the topic of my thesis is? Wrote about the Renaissance–worked it into my thesis. Wrote a published essay on the Mongols and the Silk Road… when you produce, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Writers also know. Never throw away your edits.

I do this because creativity is like a positive kind of algae. It breeds on itself. When you don’t produce, it gets harder to start every time you try.

But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to manage 26 posts within the month. There might be cheating toward the end of the month … a little slippage into May. Mea culpa in advance. And these first few might be shorter and breezier (chatty, like this one) rather than as scientific as I may have wanted. I suspect y’all prefer them to be a little more off-the cuff. Shorter if I can do it.

A starts tomorrow. Will it be Apatosaurus? Abrosaurus? Acanthopolis? Archosaur? Anatomy? Alberta? one of the best sites in the world is up in Alberta… just sayin’.

Stay tuned.