Welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my weblog.

I established this blog for the purpose of promoting my writing abilities and telling you about my writing experience as well as introduce you to more of my writing projects coming online later in the year.

Writing is a part of my DNA, borne out of a long-standing desire to write about sports and history. My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has given me a talent and perseverance to work out my abilities and skills, overcome challenges and setbacks to produce the first of what I hope to be many published books. My second career has officially kicked off!

Over the past year I wrote a manuscript which I’ll talk about a little in this article but will have much more to come in future articles. That will be turned into a book later this year. From that manuscript and the publishing deal I’ve been able to strike with Köehler Books, my ability to tell a good story has been recognized, and I’ve got so many good stories in my head that I want to tell them all! Maybe you’ll offer up some new ideas for me to write about? My writing will venture into sports, politics, religion and travel as well, depending on the mood that hits me at any particular point in time.

I’ve created a platform, a method and an opportunity to pull that all together and continue a process that started long ago during my high school and junior college days. My writing wasn’t remarkable back then, but I caught the writing bug somehow and developed it throughout my business career. In this forum, uninhibited by business constraints, I’m free to write freely!

Over the years, my biggest journalistic contributions involved simple sports stories about local high school football or basketball teams that were published in small town newspapers. Later on, that evolved into regional blogs and websites. It wasn’t until several events occurred recently that my passion for serious writing was ignited.

This happened while getting interested in my own family genealogy. I began researching various historical individuals in my family tree when I stumbled on the idea of writing a family story about some of our ancestral contributions to this great nation. Following hundreds of rabbit trails leading to some intriguing information about dozens of my grandparents and cousins, I kept coming back to one that I personally knew – a first cousin – who had led men into battle against hardened war veterans at the still tender age of 19. Gordon Joseph Lippman is the man I became determined to write about!

Digging into Gordon’s history, I found someone who deserved to have his biography told in a dedicated book! He made a successful career in the US Army. He had been reported on by CBS Evening News, written up in several books and magazines, eulogized by Paul Harvey in his national radio broadcast, interviewed by the US Army after the Korean War evolved into a stalemate, recognized by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby for his sacrifice and honored by his peers.

These are but snippets of his lifetime achievements and I was determined to take on the mission of pulling this man’s life story together, extend his legacy for his children, grandchildren and other family members, and generally write a feel-good story.

I learned three significant things from this project.

One:  I really like writing!

Two:  In order to do justice to my biographical subject, I needed to become a historian and research the material thoroughly.

Three: Writing a good book involves a disciplined methodology.

My writing process developed as I grew into the project, then became a learning exercise as I started to research Gordon’s history and compile more information. Collaborating with Mike Lippman, Gordon’s son, we put together a timeline of events tracking his father’s military career from World War II up through Vietnam. We wanted to put together a quality story, one that is based in fact, truth and accuracy.

We think we’ve accomplished that goal.

So, my learning process took me down a revelatory path into more research, refinement of my writing skills and a deeper commitment to do the right thing.

I went to the Internet and pulled up historical information about the US Army units he served with. From his army service record I learned the dates of his promotions, units he served with, schools attended and battles he experienced. I also researched those battles and gained more insight into the wars and battles he fought, why he did what he did and what made him do it. I contacted his old high school and gathered information on his athletic, theatrical and extracurricular time there as a student. These are the experiences that helped to build his character. I learned more about his family history. I interviewed men who served with Gordon and knew him first-hand.

Feel free to create an account on my blog and come back here next week for more!

Cheers!