What do you do without Joe Chill?

What do you do without Joe Chill?

Anyone who has followed Batman knows his parents were killed when he was only a child. Eventually the writers at DC Comics gave the killer a name... Joe Chill.

Joe Chill is the unseen presence that was the goal for Batman. A name for that haunting desire for revenge that kept the Dark Knight forever vigilant on protecting Gotham City. Yes, there would be far worse villains than the weasel face little man; the Joker has killed hundreds of people, but Chill holds more power over the hero than super villain.

Over the years there have been stories where Batman came close to capturing Joe Chill, and in some Chill has been captured, or killed. But all the same he remains the cancer created the Batman. The death of his parents always there when he's hunting down killers

I bring this up because of a television show I've been enjoying for the last few years called THE MENTALIST.

In the show, a serial killer murdered the wife and daughter of our lead character Patrick Jane years earlier. He has been working with the police (The CBI, California Bureau of Investigation. They didn't want to use the FBI,) helping them solve crimes, but his real desire is to hunt down the killer Red John.

Red John is Joe Chill for The Mentalist.

Last season every episode was building to Patrick confronting or possibly killing Red John. And so that is what happened.

After watching the season ender I certain the next season would take the series in a new direction. Patrick will have finally solved the case that has been his life for so many years. To me the new season would be: What does The Mentalist do now?

If Batman captures or kills Joe Chill the purpose of his very existence comes to an end. Can Bruce Wayne move on with his life? Can he put the cowl away and lock up the batcave? Or does he keep going because he knows that the mission continues... (forget the fact that many of the super villain exist because Batman exists.)

The Mentalist's new season began this past week (I'll try to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum) with him going to jail for the murder at the end of last season. Through out the episode his sanity is questioned, but his team sticks with him to the end.

So once he's released from jail he should be able to move on with his life, which is what I wanted to see. To see how he can continue help the police (CBI) when he no longer has the obsession. It would be interesting to see the change and development of his character.

But (and here's the SPOILER), the episode ends on Patrick telling his partner that the man he killed wasn't his nemesis, and that Red John is still out there.

It was a rather disappointing way to start the new season.

There are two ways that I believe the series will go from here: 1) Red John is alive and manipulated the whole thing, and will show up every so often through the season (usually one of his followers will get involved and not himself.) Been there, done that. 2) The other way is that Patrick Jane’s psychosis won't allow himself to admit the villain is gone; otherwise he has nothing left to live for.

This second direction is the way I am hoping the show goes will. Because I really want to see Patrick get on with his life, find out that there are more important things in his life than an archenemy. Maybe he might discover things already close by.

There is one more direction his character might take, but I’m pretty certain that a light detective show like The Mentalist would never go, and that would be to reveal that Patrick Jane is Red John. That would be a real depressing way to end the series.

What I really want to see is what happens to Batman when Joe Chill is no longer out there.

In THE MENTALIST what I really want to see is what happens to Batman when he’s finally solved his parent’s murder and Joe Chill is no more.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity.

Comics From Last Wednesday

Comics From Last Wednesday

by Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

I don’t always get my weekly comics fix on a Wednesday, just whenever I can make it to the comic shop. Either at Cornerstore Comics in Anaheim, or House of Secrets in Burbank. Depending on where I’m at.

This past week I picked up just a few books, among them were:

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #50 and ACTION COMICS #900

Anniversary Issues can be great. You’re promised something special in them, more pages, more art, and more story. Sometimes this really pays off great, other times it just feels like they’re just filling pages, some only with reprints.

Many times the Anniversary issue is the big climax and ending of a story that’s been going on for many months. If they’ve planned it out, the conclusion will be perfect in the big issue, but sometimes a story ends up being cut short or stretched too long so they can end on the Anniversary issue.

What follows are my thoughts more then reviews of these two Big Anniversary Issues. You don’t have to agree with any of it, but please read along.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #50

Let me start with saying I love the Justice Society and have ever since the very first comic I read and became enthralled with all the citizens of Earth 2.

I really got into them with the All Star Squadron and then continued to read about the characters and collected earlier books as well. Infinity Inc. would follow, but I was more interested in the Golden Age characters.

Then came CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. The epic event crossover all others hope to be and fail.

The Crisis merged all the universes together into one “consistent” DC Universe. Supposedly it was done because the multi-earths were confusing readers.

It never confused my 12 year old mind.

Afterwards things really became confusing.

For one important point, Superman was no longer the first of the super heroes that would inspire all the rest. There had always been something in the older books that the heroes looked up to him. That wasn’t so any more.

On a personal note, several of my favorite characters ceased to exist, or their origins were thrown into chaos. The chaos struck the worst for Power Girl who was no longer the cousin of Superman. They tried to make her a descendent of ARION OF ATLANTIS. It didn’t work.

As for the missing characters, The Huntress, Helena Wayne, daughter of Batman and Catwoman.

What became a real problem to me was the modern age of characters sometimes acted as if they didn’t even know the earlier ones existed. Some stories were written about villains who hypnotized the entire world to forget the heroes. Just as they had forgotten the city of Keystone City was right next door to Central City (in this new world).

That never really worked for me.

Recently, Len Wein wrote the wonderful series called LEGACIES, which provides a great overview of the history of the DC super heroes. Though it also required time to be ‘squashed’ so that though World War II happened 70 years ago, the golden age of heroes didn’t seem to be that long ago. I can live with it so the great history of the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA still exists.

With all that behind us, I bring you to Issue 50 of their current series, written by Marc Guggenheim. The first eleven pages, drawn by George Perez, makes the purchase of the entire book worth the cover price to anyone who loves the DC Universe, and even more so to someone like me with such love for the Justice Society.

From his first appearance it was known that Barry Allen had been inspired by a comic book of the original FLASH. The same type of inspiration is the theme of this first story about the JSA and their Golden Age contemporaries, and is told from the point of view of all the Silver Age and modern heroes that are inspired by them. It is a beautiful and simple example how important those original characters still are.

(SIDE NOTE: The concept of the SILVER AGE doesn’t really exist any more as most characters seem to only have appeared in the last ten years. The exception being Martian Manhunter.)

We begin to get a glimpse of the ‘main story’ of this book as we get different shots of the villain Per Degaton as he has fought different incarnation of the JSA/ALL-STAR SQUADRON. But what’s important and fun to see is the first of these pages where we find ourselves on EARTH 2 or rather the NEW EARTH 2 that was created during the events of INFINITY CRISIS.

This Earth 2 was last scene a couple of years back in a JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA Annual where they meet their counterparts of the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF INFINITY. It’s a name that shows us just what’s different in the world that is extremely close to the original Earth 2. Here its obvious that Star Spangle Kid was not only able to have his Super Squad (from when ALL STAR COMICS was revived in the 70s) and that the children of the Society actually became members instead of forming INFINITY INC.

In that earlier story not only do we deal with the chaos of Power Girl’s life, especially now that she knows she is the cousin of Superman but of an alternate earth and died in the latest Crisis. On top of that I finally got to see Helena Wayne as the Huntress as she was meant to be and drawn by Jerry Ordway, one of the artists who worked on Infinity Inc and her own series in the back of Wonder Woman back then.

It’s great to know that version of the team exists, (that’s the team I really want to write for.)

The next story in this anniversary book is actually a tale that’s been told several times before. About when the Justice Society faced off with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Originally to explain why they had been missing for so many decades. This time it takes a personal look at the team members as they have to make the decision of turning their back on a government that has turned its back on them. I’m not a major Howard Chaykin fan, but his artwork really works for this sequence, and it’s an excellent telling.

With that the book brings us to present day and we discover what Per Degaton has been up to.

Truthfully, this part of the book, though tied to the others, it is the least appealing to me. And that maybe my own fault, as I have missed several months of both JSA books so somethings are not quite so clear to me. I certainly don’t like the new ALAN SCOTT/GREEN LANTERN costume, but as I said that’s me.

Even with that, if you have any interest in the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA and the DC Universe, this book is worth having.

ACTION COMICS #900

Over the last week this issue has gotten a lot of news coverage. You know about that, I’ll mention it briefly later, but let’s not dwell on it.

A special anniversary issue of a comic book should still be an issue of the series, and that is what we have here.

Here is the conclusion Paul Cornell’s great story focusing on Lex Luthor and his robot Lois Lane. It had been a great ride as Lex ran up against some of the greatest super villains of the DC Universe and now achieving his ultimate of goals and finally destroy Superman.

Yet as with all great egos, Lex brings about his own undoing, but not in any expected way. Even the reappearance of Neil Gaiman’s Death is welcome, and experiences the events of the story only in the way she could.

I have one complaint about this story, and only one, but it could appear to be major. I was looking forward to a conclusion to a great story, but was disappointed to find that we were being thrust right into the REIGN OF DOOMSDAY. I’ve never been into any of the Doomsday stories, he was one of those characters that served it’s purpose and should have been left to die, but came back time and again.

Even with that complain, I am very please to see Paul Cornell will remain at the helm as writer and I know will not be disappointed.

The next story in this anniversary book, entitled “Life Support” by Damon Lindelof, is a short quiet moment from a doomed world. Too bad one of the other stories in the book got all the news coverage, because this little tale speaks volumes far beyond any controversy. Forget the other story, pull out your copy of Action Comics #900 and read this story and I dare you note to shed a tear when its over.

“Autobiography” by writer Paul Dini is about Superman’s experience with alien worlds, and how someone like him will eventually be seen by other worlds. Not really a story, but just a conversation between being mightier than mortal men.

Geoff John’s story is surprisingly disappointing. A cute glimpse into Lois wanting to know Clark’s friends from the future, but it just doesn’t work for me.

Now comes “The Incident” by David S. Goyer. I don’t want to get involved in this non-controversy. It’s a very good story. Superman would do what he did in this story, because he helps people, any people that need help. As to the American issue, I’ll only say this: Over half of the original Justice League of America were not Americans, they were either foreigners or aliens, and two worked for intergalactic police forces who thought their jurisdiction superseded the local constabulary. (I’ll let you figure that all out for yourself.) My only question is where is this going to lead? Is there a story line planned out? Hasn’t Superman appeared to be an enemy of the state already, a threat to national security? Ask Lois’ dad. I hope we can get away from such stories. It’s rather tiring.

The Richard Donner script that follows is good, and though I’m a scriptwriter myself I found it hard to read in this format. sorry.

I really like the Brian Stelfreeze two page spread in the back of the book. Many years ago, Mr. Stelfreeze spent half an hour on the phone with me talking about working in comic and what I should do. I feel bad never staying in touch with him. He’s a great guy and a great artist.

So here we are, two very enjoyable anniversary comics out the same week. One gets more attention than it deserves, and the other should be read by many many more.

I don’t know if these are well written reviews of these comics or not, but I hope you enjoy them, and go buy the books and enjoy them for what they are. Good story telling.

Another Filler Blog - Go read my serial instead...

Sometimes it’s just hard to come up with ideas to fill this blog. I totally missed one a couple of weeks ago. I really hate when that happens. Feels like I have let my readers down, and maybe even more so I let myself down by not accomplishing what I have set out to do.

Coming up with ideas for non-fiction articles and blogs are much harder than fictional tales of giant worms that live in the sun—

[Hold on a sec, I better write that down before I forget—Darn, lost it.]

That’s exactly what I mean. You can come up with the wildest or most serious or most funny piece of fiction easier than it is to work up a worthwhile article or blog with substance that the audience can enjoy and get something out of and maybe learn from.

This blog is not going to be one of those because I’m already running out of steam.

Here’s what you can do, and what I can do, as a way to start working up better ideas for your blog and not just waiting to the last minute to fill space. (I'm not doing that; really I’m not doing that. Well, maybe, a little.)

Make quick notes to yourself through the day and through the week. They don’t have to of anything important, just a thought you had, a person you met, a funny sign you saw, a stupid commercial, a news article that intrigues you (that’s important, be certain to read and not just blogs like this one). Write down a few words about it. The act of writing, even those few words will begin the creative juices flowing. Maybe those juices will run dry and that idea won’t amount to anything, but that’s okay, keep making note. The more you do it, the more the ideas will grow and develop.

Apparently this one didn’t work out to well for me.

So here’s the deal, I’m going to be making notes of blog ideas through out the following week. Then next week I will show you the seven best of those ideas and actually write a blog about them.

There’s my blog for the week.

The “Space Worms From Hell” wasn’t very good either.

Spellchecker can be your friend, but don’t let it be a crutch.

I write the above, and this blog, not just to teach those who need to know, but to acknowledge I have made the mistake of relying too heavily on computer spellchecker programs many times.

If you can’t recognize your own faults and learn from them, how can you teach others?

That squiggly red line for spelling mistake, the squiggly green line for grammar, they show up regularly in my work, and I try my best to squash the squiggles. (Squash the Squiggles. Would that have made a better title?)

A great thank you goes out to all who have stuck with me and reading both my blog and my serial ‘Revenge of the Masked Ghost’ for the last several months. Not only because I’m really glad to know you like my work, but that you’ve put up with a ton of mistakes slipping through. (Look there goes a red squiggly now; I just typed ‘miskates’. Interesting sounding word, but wrong.)

Went back and reread my book review as well as the Megamind blog, and I’m embarrassed by how many mistakes were in both of them. Really surprised when a totally wrong word shows up. Spellchecker can’t help with those. Have no excuse for any of it other than to say I write each blog (including this one) rather quickly at the last minute. Shouldn’t do that, I know. I did correct the mistakes in those entries.

I didn’t get hired for a writing assignment recently because the client found spelling mistakes in the writing samples I submitted. He thought I had a lot of good ideas, but couldn’t sit over my shoulder and correct each mistake that came along. Of course, he’s right. Even though there would be an editor on the project it’s her job to fit it into the over all theme and format of the book, not fix each and every wrong spelling or misplaced comma. Those should have been take care of long before it gets to the editor’s desk.

Lesson learned. I’m trying very hard to correct every mistake I can possibly find, though I will invariably miss something.

Sometimes I think the spellchecker is wrong. Is the word ‘correct’ used correctly? Computer says it’s not.

I admit to having a problem with ‘sound-a-likes’ such as ‘then’ and ‘than’. I need to pay more attention to that.

Next lesson. After you’ve squashed the squiggles, print the darn paper out and read it.

Yes, we’re supposed to be a paperless society, but it’s not going to happen. Print it out and take a pencil to it. There’s something even better you can do to find mistakes, read it aloud. It’s embarrassing, sure, but find someplace you can be alone and read to hear your own words. You may even find that the words (even spelled correctly) aren’t the right ones after all. Hearing is far more powerful then sight when it comes to catching problems.

When I’m finished with this blog, I’m going to follow my own instruction and print it and read it aloud.

Lastly, there are people who see bloggers as the new journalists of our society, if so they should at least try to learn the proper style of newspaper and journalistic writing and that includes getting your words spelled right.

I may not go back and correct every mistake in all the blogs I’ve written, but do intend on proofing again each of the chapters of the serial.

Again, thank you for putting up with my bad spelling, because without fixing that I can’t truly say…

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity

A change in the weather, a change in the Deadline.

Hey, look, it’s Thursday evening and time for my weekly brain dump of a blog.

Thanks everyone who has been taking time out of your busy schedules to read my rambles. I really appreciate it.

This blog was always supposed to be about my writing and about my career. Sometimes, however, it became a place for me to vent and complain. I don’t want that to happen regularly.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my job search and how it hadn’t been going well, so I have been devoting a lot of my time to writing and drawing the webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, my novel, my serial REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST, and this blog and pushing to keep a deadline for each one of them as if I was on a paid assignment.

It looks like my deadline schedule is about to change.

I have a job.

(I can hear you all cheering out there. No wait, that’s a cricket outside my office window.)

Yes, that’s true, I have a job. Or rather a short term, part-time job between now and this coming February, but it is a job.

I praise God for this job as I would any other.

Being a part time job of only twelve hours a week I should still have plenty of time to write. Hopefully I will find someone who will pay me to write, but I’m still going to write no matter what.

Which brings me to the shifting of my deadlines. I don’t want to really change anything, but know something has to give a little.

Each new page of the webcomic will still be posted on Sundays, and this blog should still be able to make its appearance each Thursday (as you can tell it doesn’t take much brain power). As much as I don’t want to, am going to post the serial every other week. Not only will it ease up my schedule, but I’ll be able to improve on the story.

I intend to post the next chapter this following Tuesday, and then two weeks later.

Thank you for your understand and support. It’s really been great to know that people are out there reading my stories. Know any publishers or producers you could point my way? (Seriously: Does anyone need an assistant for a couple days a week?)

Would love to hear from you either here in the comments section or at my Twitter account: Kevinpsb00

Thanks, have a great weekend.

Shhhh... This place might be blogged.

Went to an industry gathering last night about – Well, I can’t tell you what it was about, we were sworn to secrecy.

Because I can’t tell you what it was about got me thinking about something, and so I’ll blog about that instead.

When the panel began, the representative of the place hosting it reminded us that there was no recording or pictures taken allowed. Before she could finish; the moderator of the panel made the point that ‘blogging’ would not be allowed. Repeating, ‘please don’t blog’.

It made me realize just how much has changed in personal recording devices and how they’ve been implemented over the years.

When my mother was in college, she thought there had to be a way to better study the teacher’s lectures.

So one day she wrote to RCA suggesting they provide her with a portable audio recorder, saying it would be an ideal way to help students study the class lectures if they could listen to it over again. She suggested that if she could have one it would help promote sales to other students once they saw how it worked.

Realize that at the time, even though it was battery operated and considered ‘portable’ this was a reel-to-reel tape recorder that came in its own briefcase like carrier.

The kind people at RCA wrote her back, and plainly said ‘No’. They had no interest, or believe that their recorder could be used in a classroom situation.

My parents eventually did buy a similar reel-to-reel device they used on a vacation trip.

Decades pass and the cassette tape is born. Another battery operated device we could carry but even it was too large to have sitting on your classroom desk. And the placement of the microphone was never good. (I use to record the audio of TV shows with that, this was before we got a VCR.)

That, in turn, led to me getting a mini-cassette recorder, and here’s where we get back to the subject.

I once attempted to use my mini-recorder in a class, but the teacher wasn’t too happy with it. But it turned out that all he wanted was for me to ask ahead of time and not just start recording.

There are places for recorders to be used, and there are placed for them not to be used.

These mini-cassettes turned out to be useful as I went to work on the college newspaper for when I did interviews with subjects. I interviewed comic book artists Brian Murray (Young All-Star’s, Supreme) who had been a student at the college a few years earlier, and science fiction writer James P. Blaylock who was teaching a class that semester.

The mini-cassette eventually was replaced with a digital recorder. Did the job nicely, but came along a little too late.

Now practically everyone has a digital recorder in their pocket or strapped to their belt. It’s called their cell phone. Hey, not only can you record the audio of a teacher’s lecture, you can record the video of him droning on and on while the students fall asleep. Then put it up on Youtube not just for your own use and for other students to study by, but to be watched by the rest of the world as well.

We have so gotten away from the intent of my mother’s original idea of being able to have her teacher’s lecture at hand when she needed to study for the exam.

Now there is an expectation that there will be a recorder of some device in every gathering of more than two people.

Cellphones are ordered turned off not because of that terrible ring-tone you have, but because you might well be recording something.

Signs are put up everywhere with the order that all recording devices can not be used while in this building or listening to that speaker, or watching a clip of an as yet unreleased movie. Heck, when on a movie lot I have to leave my phone in the car because people are so paranoid that the smallest video clip will leak out. Not that they’re wrong in their thinking, but I would have liked to have had my phone. I never use the camera anyway, right.

But even with the order that we can’t use our recorders, things have gone even further than that now.

“Please no blogging.” Live blogging? How is that even possible? It’s hard enough for me to take notes during a panel discussion, let along put it all out in some coherent fashion on to the web, live.

But it does happen.

All you Mac fanatics I am certain were watching the streaming live blogs a few months back as Steve Jobs talked about the latest released of the iPhone, iPad, and MacTV. Remember how he attempted to show off the wireless feature of the camera feature on the iPhone? Remember how it didn’t work? Remember how he had to plead with the audience for everyone to stop Live Blogging because it was slowing down the wifi of the building and he couldn’t do his little presentation? There was so many bloggers there all writing about the exact same thing, that they became part of the story themselves.

So in our little secret panel discussion of last night the moderator was more concerned that secrets would be leaked out in a live blog than they would be through an audio or video recording off your iPhone.

That’s the world we live in now, everything (including this) ends up on a blog.

Beware the power you wield.

Shhhhh… the place maybe bugged – or is it blogged?

And there’s my blog for the week, it’s still Thursday on the West Coast.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

“Four Names of Creative Professionalism”

And not yet live-blogging.

DEADLINES – “I’m going to make this one.”

Maybe this week I’ll actually meet my deadline and post this blog on a Thursday like I promised myself.

But worried I’m going to miss the deadline for finishing the artwork of my web comic.

Which got me to thinking about deadlines.

Since I’m “between” assignments right now, I have had to created self-imposed deadlines on myself or I wouldn’t get anything done.

Here are the deadlines I have set for myself right now:

Sunday – The latest page of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY has been penciled, inked and approved and I post it to the web site.

Tuesday – The next chapter of “Revenge of the Masked Ghost” is posted to my note page on facebook (Which maybe moving to its own site soon.)

Thursday – I post my "Four Names of Professional Creativity" blog (hopefully this got posted on a Thursday).

Saturday – Study and Prep for the Sunday School/Bible Study I lead Sunday mornings.

You can find most of the links for these over there on the right, and if you’re reading this you’ve found it already and don’t need the link.

As I’m writing this I am also penciling more of the comic, and working on a novel. One thing I am good at is multitasking, but it doesn’t always help.

I need to have these deadlines, not only does it force me to get the work done it also keeps me thinking in the same mind set as I would when employed to do the work under even tighter deadlines.

If not for these deadlines I’d constantly be finding reasons not to do the work. It’s so easy to get distracted as is (thank you Twitter).

One of the hardest things for me to do is something I really need to do more of. That’s to write spec scripts (samples of my writing, either a movie, a television show, animation, or a comic book). If I know someone is interested in my work and wants to see a sample, or is willing to let me pitch for their project, I can write up a good sample in a short time. However, if I don’t have a goal like that it becomes hard to build up the energy to write. So I need to force a deadline and goal on myself to get it done.

It’s coming on a year now since I decided to participate in NANOWRIMO, National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) I had a vague idea for a science fiction novel and so signed up for it. In Nano the writer has thirty days to write 50,000 words of a novel. You don’t have to complete the story, but the goal is to reach that number.

Surprisingly I reached 50,000 with a couple of days to spare, and actually finish the entire first draft.

The problem I did have with the story was that though I knew where it should end up, it was all over the place with far more characters then planned taking different paths to reach that end. Every so often I go back and take a look at it, there’s still something there but I have to rip it apart and workout a detailed outline to put all the parts back together again.

What made it even more frustrating was that about a week into Nano I had an idea for a completely different novel, which would have worked out a whole lot better if I had begun with it. But I had committed myself to the first story and was going to see it through. I paused long enough to write down about a page worth of notes on the new story and then got back to Nano.

Once I completed the Nano novel and feeling victorious I gave myself a few days off and then turned to the second story. And I surprised myself by having the first draft of it done by the end of December.

With Nano I was proved to myself that I could complete a major assignment under a deadline, and the second novel proved that it just wasn’t a onetime event. Though I didn’t have someone else counting down the days I pushed to get it finished before the end of the year, and I succeeded.

Lastly, as I approach the deadline for this blog I want to mention that a Deadline can also be considered a Finish Line of a race. Whether you’ve been given an assignment, or working on a personal project you run for that line. When you cross the finish line or beat that that deadline, if you’ve worked your hardest and done your best work, you’re already victorious. The acclaim, the fortune, the fame, that’ll come later.

And with that little gem I’m just going to make this deadline with about an hour to spare.

Oh, one more thing. I just finished the pencils on the comic page, so I will be able to meet the deadline for FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY as well.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity.

That seemed to work. I'm pleased.

Should have a real blog up by the middle of this week.

The only problem  I have with the Mac Widget to blog here is that I can't include the Label Tags for the post through the Widget.  So I have to go back later and add them directly as I am now. 

Hi everyone, this is basically a test to see if a Widget on my Mac Dashboard will allow me to blog.

If anyone is reading this, please let me know. I'd like to know if there's anyone out there. :)

Hoping to get to more blogging soon.