I started this blog as a way of sharing things that were going on in my head, my life and our community. But I also wanted to practice my writing. If I don’t practice, I cannot improve. Also, I really enjoy it. I have a lot of fun writing a piece and then pruning it to near perfection. When I finally ‘publish’ it, I don’t really care if anyone reads it, just as long as I feel as though I’ve accomplished something that I’m happy with.
Of course, if you do read it that is really great too.
Who am I kidding?
Please read it!
But what do I write about when I don’t know what to write about?
I usually have a few ideas forming at any given time, when I sit down to write. I have found that beginning with three or four of these ideas and jotting up a little blurb on each one is a good way to get started. I begin to expand each one, fleshing out the blurb and then adding details. The one that I spend the most time on is usually the one I write and publish.
It’s a good formula for me, since sometimes what I think I want to write about and what I wind up writing about are not the same thing.
For example, two weeks ago I decided to go through with it and get my hair cut. I really wanted to write about the experiences I was having going from a ‘longhair’ to a new shorter style. As I began to write, though, I lost steam. It was a good piece, and I still intend to work it up a little more and publish it eventually. Still, I just wasn’t ‘feeling it’ as they say.
I looked at the other ideas that I started and none of them stood up and said hello to me either. I hammered out my other writing assignments, the ones I am obliged to do, but this blog just wasn’t giving me anything. No good ideas.
Zilch.
This fact worried me just a little bit, to be honest. I am fond and even a little proud of this blog and its collection of tidbits. I really don’t want to abandon it and I must hold myself to my personal goal of posting at least once a week. Discipline is a key principle of good writing, after all.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that I was overdoing it, just a little. Maybe, since I am writing for a few other venues now more regularly than before, some of the impetus that I have always maintained for this blog was being absorbed by those writings. I mean, one can only get so many ideas in one day, right?
Actually I have about a million things I’d love to write about. Some of those subjects I cannot write just out of a sense of being polite, some because I just don’t have the talent.
Sure, I’d like to shake up the slumbering, sleepwalking masses with a rousing and witty rant that leaves welts on their proverbial skin. I would love to write a humorous anecdote that leaves you giggling and feeling better about yourself and the world in general. I would love to be able to conjure up a rousing call to arms, causing the wealthy to give extra to the needy and sting the pride of those who need it most.
But today, as I hone this blog, I’ve got nothing at all to write about. No idea seems more worthy of cyber-print than another. I’m sadly out of steam and it’s a frustrating state of affairs.
So, as you read this, please be patient with me. A new idea will come along, and I’ll find a way to make it pertinent and try to make it eloquent, even if it is not elegant.
I will keep jotting my ideas down, and I will keep looking for the best one. And perhaps you’ll excuse me if every now and again what I write about is not being able to think of anything to write about.
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