Saturday, April 9, 2011

Writing Woes


  • I've thought of several ideas for blogs over the past few weeks. But if I don't write ideas down, they slip away into the recesses of my mind until something pulls them out again. Maybe that's why they call it fishing for ideas. You cast a line in your brain, hoping to pull out one of those bottom feeding catfish with the whiskers.

  • I'm not able to write a daily post. I don't have the time, energy or enough worthwhile topics to pull that off. I might be able to manage one a week if I set my mind to it. I am, after all, an obsessive planner so if I put it on my to do list, it would probably get done. But that hasn't happened either. So I'm happy with myself, for now, if I blog at least once a month. Just checked the date of my last one and I'm making good on my promise.

  • I wish I could blog more. I've always loved writing. I wanted to be a novelist or a playwright, holed up in some cabin in the mountains pounding away on a typewriter. With dogs by my side, of course. Or out in the country in a house by the lake like in Funny Farm, getting inspiration from a squirrel. And I would love to be a singer/songwriter if I knew anything about melodies, harmony or notes. But those things take a lot of talent. And I live in the real world which means I need a regular paycheck.


  • I'm also a bit of a perfectionist. If I can't sit down with an idea at hand and a plan to craft it, I won't post anything. In fact, what I'm doing right now is a bit out of the ordinary. Just sitting here writing on the actual Blogger website. I usually start writing in Microsoft Word, save it, go back over it, edit it, copy and paste it here, edit some more and finally post after I've previewed it and made some more adjustments. That takes a long time! And sometimes I just want to get off the computer for awhile. Take a walk. Do some yoga. Watch TV and not think.

  • That being said, I can't remember any of those ideas I had for blogs right now. So I guess this is a just blog about blogging. I also don't like to make these things too long because I know our attention spans are short these days with all the information that's thrown at us from every angle. But like Jerry Springer, I have a final thought.

  • I do get to write in my current profession which is awesome, but I don't have the time I crave to really perfect it. There's always a deadline approaching and I'm often working with other people's words, not my own. But at least I came close. I'm not totally out in left field: performing neurosurgery, building a skyscraper or rocketing to the moon. That's just not me :)