In the beginning, there were ducks…

Welcome to Ducks out of a Row! Pardon the irony, but I’m going to quick line up my ducks and give you a rundown of who I am, what this blog is, and why the ducks aren’t in a row.

Me

I am a writer named John who lives in West Michigan. I’m generally a pretty laidback guy, but I do have my opinions and values. I respect other people’s points of view and am more than willing to listen to someone who doesn’t agree with me. Doesn’t mean I’ll change my mind, but at least I’ll listen and give it some thought. That being said, I have my core values and my fur gets raised if they are violated. It might take a while to get to that point with me, but it is definitely there.

I’m originally from Wisconsin, but came to Holland, Michigan to attend Hope College. That was in 1996, but I am still here. Not sure how much I’ll talk about my family, since my wife is rather private. Well, actually I’m usually quite private myself… in spite of this very public act of blogging. In real life, I am fairly quiet and accurately described as being shy.

Writing frees me, though. It provides liberty I don’t find elsewhere. For anyone who is familiar with Meyer-Briggs personality typing (MBTI), I’m the quintessential INFP and the whole “writing thing” is perfectly in line with that. If you aren’t familiar with MBTI, I’d recommend checking it out. It’s very interesting and can be rather useful in understanding yourself, others, and how people relate to each other.

You can test to find your MBTI personality type here (only takes a couple minutes…). After that, there are a plethora of sites devoted to breaking down the various types. I’m particularly fond of Personality Page and Personality Pathways, but there are others available (Google “MBTI” or your specific type…).

Ducks out of a Row

This blog isn’t necessarily about my writing, though. If you have an interest in that, be sure to check out j.m. neeb. Over there I am sort of documenting my journey into the realm of becoming a full-time, self-sufficient writer, but I have more to say than topics just related to that particular trek in my life.

The aim of this blog is to be more of a column. Thoughts, observations, opinions, et cetera. I am still trying to determine frequency. Ideally, this will be a twice-a-week endeavor.

There are a lot of things I would like to say and I think this will be the perfect medium for me to do so.

But why “Ducks out of a Row?”

A lot of times in life, we wait for our ducks to be in a row before we take action. Well, this is a statement from me to say that I don’t care where my ducks are or what they are doing. Heck, right now my ducks are all over the place. Some are playing a high stakes game of dice in the neighbor’s yard. Others are making an impromptu road trip to Vegas in a beat-up ’94 Dodge Aries. And there’s the one who is in a row boat, wearing a sombrero cordobes and heading to Spain.

The thing is… I don’t care where my ducks are or even what they’re doing. Eventually, they’ll come back. But I’m not about to sit around and wait for them. I’ve done that and found it doesn’t get me anywhere.

So welcome, again, to Ducks out of a Row. I’ll keep writing, so be sure to come back. And if you like what you read, please tell a friend (or family member, co-worker, stranger, enemy…)!