When I was a kid my dad used to take me and my brother to professional baseball games. We would take a summer trip to New York every year, and while we were there we’d try to catch a Mets game if the Cardinals (my favorite team) were in town.

Even after I graduated from college during the summer we would all get together — me, my dad, my brother, and my nephew — and make a trip to Cincinnati to watch a Reds game. In addition to spending days at the little league baseball park those trips and experiences watching MLB games are still something I remember.

When I sit down to write, I try to picture having a real conversation with a real person. By doing this, it helps put a personal touch on my writing.

Instead of me writing and sending something out into cyberspace, or the cloud, for just any random person to stumble across, I want to have a particular person in mind who could use real encouragement, and who has real problems needing real solutions.