In my humble opionion, or IMHO as netphiles might say, my dog is the cutest in the universe. And you just might agree if you saw her staring up at you, her head cocked to one side, her fruitbat ears up, her tongue hanging out and her tail wagging. But, you’ll just have to settle for her curled up in her bed, fresh from a bath last night.

Photo taken by Rich on 3/12/05. Bed purchased from Target. Towel purchased circa 1973. Green object in lower left corner is the foot of a frog chew toy purchased in 2004 at PetCo. The dog was found by the San Gabriel Humane Society and brought in to the pound on Feb. 14, 1995. She was lactating. I brought her home on March 25 of that year and have never regretted a momment.

One of my dream projects for this year is to launch The Genre Traveler. As I envision it at the moment, this would start out as a quarterly e-zine and someday blossom into a, possibly syndicated, column. Basically, The Genre Traveler focuses on genre-related travel, genre being defined as anything to do with speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy and horror). You can learn more about the concept at home.comcast.net/~dragonwyze/SpecFic/GenreTraveler.htm.

Why do I mention this? Well, without any marketing efforts at all, just simply creating a page on my website (a buried page, I might add) I’ve already gotten my first reader! This tells me that it is a viable idea – OK, OK, one reader does not a hot niche make. But, now I know at least one person besides myself would be interested in such a publication. So, I know there’ll be more.

It gives me inspiration to know my idea is of interest to someone else. And is goes to show that even little, barely there marketing efforts can have an impact.

Wow, the power of the Internet boggles me sometimes.

OK, OK, maybe not boggle. But I think you get the point.

Is there an idea or dream you have burning inside you? Do you need a little outside inspiration? I recently heard of this contest that just might do the trick. It’s called Blog Fest and you can learn more about it at www.writingstuff.com/blogfest.html. Basically, Twenty Twenty Publishing is holding a competition ($5 entry fee) with a prize of $2,000 to help someone work toward his or her writing dreams. The catch: the winner has to write a weekly blog for the Month of May letting readers know how he or she is progressing on their project. Nine runners up will share a prize of $1000 (that’s about $111.11 per person). The deadline is April 20, 2005.

If you decide to take this challenge, let everyone here know — add a comment to this blog entry. Tell us about your writing dream. If you win, let us know and share the glory. It can inspire us all.