For about 10 years of my life I kept a journal. It was daily, if not hourly at times. My buddy Robb got me into the habit after we worked together at Martin/Williams. I've got boxes and boxes of various "blank books" filled with thoughts and observations and work and ticket stubs and photos and postcards from various people. Most of that decade's highs and lows are chronicled in fairly minute detail.

But towards the end of that era I'd go for weeks, then months, without writing anything. The past 12 days have felt unfortunately familiar. I still carry a blank book around, mostly for concepting and work details and gibberish from meetings. Where it used to take maybe a month to fill a medium size Moleskin, now it takes six if not a year. I just don't collect my thoughts anymore.

At least, not in the same way.

I always wrote in those books as if someone would eventually read the words. (And I hope that day is still very long into the future.) But I really wrote for myself. I wrote to exorcise--to trap distracting ideas on paper and empty my head. Sometimes it actually worked.

This forum is similar, but ever so much more delicate. Ever so much more demanding of precision and editing. Ever so much more immediate.

To wit:  I was "let go" from my employer of 14-odd months on Friday, July 13. "Goodbye, Carmichael Lynch."

Aha! Something dramatic! Something juicy. Something worth scribbling about for pages and pages. But alas, as these events go, the separation was fairly amicable. Boring, even. Buy me a drink if you want the gossip.

Now, on with life. On with the words. On with the conversation.

To that end, I've decided to be a part of starting a new company. Time to be my own boss.

So I'm sitting up in the trees--trying to help create a new kind of advertising entity. Trouble is, we're already quite busy. We're in the midst of producing some exciting work. People have actually sent us checks. We're an LLC. Marvelous problems to have, of course.

Once we get ourselves dressed for the prom, we'll step out. And another conversation will commence.

Meanwhile, there are words to wrangle.