Things that inspire

Hello:

Hopefully today's post won't ramble away in the fashion that most of them have. The thing that makes me think that might happen is that I really haven't prepared anything for today. I have pages of notes for future posts, but none of them seem quite right for today. I do the same thing with my personal writing projects. Reams of notes, no finished product. Like my writing projects, I'm a work in progress. I continually get better at moving my projects forward and confronting the obstacles that prevent me from writing. Eventually, I'll have something to show for it. Honestly, it won't even matter if it is any good. It's kind of like a mental century ride. The important thing is to complete. John Gregory Dunne said "Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe" and I think that there is a lot of wisdom in that. Even the never-ending note taking process is further than I have gone before and the daily writing to this BLOG is further yet.

I've been fortunate to know several people who have written, composed, published and / or produced a personal project. My friend John Cleary actually wrote and produced a musical called the Mystic. I don't have links handy for some of the others but I'll make a point of collecting them and sprinkling them liberally through upcoming posts (I bet you can't wait). Anyway, seeing others do these things inspires and strengthens my resolve to accomplish my goals.

In the spirit of inspiration, today I would like to bring attention to the works of Kathleen O'Connell Chesto. Kathleen is another of our major authors and has many titles in print at Liguori Publications (she also publishes with some other houses, but I won't specify them here). She has developed a reputation for writing on topics dealing with family faith, personal inspiration, and child development. Several months ago, she was the focus of a Liguori television infomercial that aired on PAX TV. Honestly, I don't think that sort of ad is good for Liguori and it didn't drive sales the way we had hoped. However the clips are somewhat interesting and you can view them here (Broadband clip 1, Broadband clip2), (Lowband clip1, Lowband clip2). You can also view a sample chapter of Raising Kids Who Care About Themselves, About Their World, About Each Other.

Those of you that know me are no doubt laughing over today's choice. Let's just say that I'm not really fond of "the little people". Somehow though, this selection just seemed to fit. Hopefully by next week, I'll have had some more experiences with Google ads and Froogle to relate to you.

Peace,

P. Del Ricci