So it goes like this:
I have a busy stretch of weeks, which becomes a busy stretch of months. I don't write.
I think about things that I could write for my blog. None of them feel particularly good, mostly because, well, because they're not that good.
This, in turn, makes me think about how the thing that I should write, if it's going to be the first blog entry in a long while, should be something really good. In fact, the more time that goes by, the better I think it should be.
This means that the gap between my perceptions of the quality of my potential blog entry and my expectations of the blog entry's quality continue to widen. This means that I turn my attention from blog writing to more important matters, such as finally getting around to finishing the first season of "The Man in the High Castle."
Of course, this makes me think about how I'll never, ever write as well as Phillip K. Dick. This, in turn, makes me think about how anything that I'm going to write about isn't going to be all that good. Meanwhile, more time has passed, so now the gap between the quality of my writing and what this blog entry should be has become carvernous.
More time goes by. Things even get in the way of watching "The Man in the High Castle." There are random internet cat videos to watch. Cats are always doing new things, and I need to stay current as to what those cats are up to.
There are also random chords to play on my guitar. It's not a standard guitar, by the way, but a tenor guitar. This is a four string guitar that was originally designed for plectrum banjo players who wanted to play guitar, but you can tune it like a ukulele.
I play the ukulele, so this works for me.
Meanwhile, more time goes by.
At this point, I think about how if one of my friends were writing one of these blog things, I really wouldn't care so much about what they were writing. I mean, I tell you: there's nothing sadder than a friend's abandoned blog. I want to read my friend's news; their story about a morning cup of coffee is often, for me, more newsworthy than the top stories on the AP newswire, and they're usually far less depressing.
At this point, I start writing, and it occurs to me that had I simply written this a long while ago and accepted the fact that a good number of my blog entries are going to be pretty lame, I could just write them and be done with them, and hope that my friends are patient with the fact that some of them will be pretty lame.
Hey...at least I keep my paragraphs short. I can't help but notice that when someone writes a blog entry with a long paragraph, I shy away. It just starts to feel academic to me, and I want to read a blog entry, not a doctoral dissertation. This is just me.
So I keep my paragraphs short. Sometimes they have as few as two sentences.
Sometimes they only have one.
And sometimes, it's not even a sentence in the paragraph.
Just a fragment.
That's it.
Anyway, at some point, it feels as if maybe it's time to stop writing, and I can't help but think that the person reading it kind of feels as if they've been cheated, that they really didn't get much of a reading experience.
But then I think: maybe I'm doing a service.
For all I know, maybe the person reading this has a blog that they haven't updated in a long time, and they need a simple method to procrastinate as they agonize over the way that there's this gap between how good they want their blog entry to be, and how good they think it's going to be. Maybe they need to read a blog entry that is light on substance, but one that contains simple words that allow them to just sort of sit there, feeling like they're doing something when in fact they're really not doing that much.
Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing that leads to that person finally realizing that the only option is to just write the blog entry, and give it some sort of heading like "Another Lackluster Post On Not Having Written in a Long While."
And then maybe, just maybe, that post will inspire another person to update a blog that they haven't updated in far too long. This is a good thing, because then that person's friends say to themselves "well, at least he keeps writing his blog. It's so depressing when people abandon them."
Do have a happy new year. If you write, keep writing. I will do the same.
I have a busy stretch of weeks, which becomes a busy stretch of months. I don't write.
I think about things that I could write for my blog. None of them feel particularly good, mostly because, well, because they're not that good.
This, in turn, makes me think about how the thing that I should write, if it's going to be the first blog entry in a long while, should be something really good. In fact, the more time that goes by, the better I think it should be.
This means that the gap between my perceptions of the quality of my potential blog entry and my expectations of the blog entry's quality continue to widen. This means that I turn my attention from blog writing to more important matters, such as finally getting around to finishing the first season of "The Man in the High Castle."
Of course, this makes me think about how I'll never, ever write as well as Phillip K. Dick. This, in turn, makes me think about how anything that I'm going to write about isn't going to be all that good. Meanwhile, more time has passed, so now the gap between the quality of my writing and what this blog entry should be has become carvernous.
More time goes by. Things even get in the way of watching "The Man in the High Castle." There are random internet cat videos to watch. Cats are always doing new things, and I need to stay current as to what those cats are up to.
There are also random chords to play on my guitar. It's not a standard guitar, by the way, but a tenor guitar. This is a four string guitar that was originally designed for plectrum banjo players who wanted to play guitar, but you can tune it like a ukulele.
I play the ukulele, so this works for me.
Meanwhile, more time goes by.
At this point, I think about how if one of my friends were writing one of these blog things, I really wouldn't care so much about what they were writing. I mean, I tell you: there's nothing sadder than a friend's abandoned blog. I want to read my friend's news; their story about a morning cup of coffee is often, for me, more newsworthy than the top stories on the AP newswire, and they're usually far less depressing.
At this point, I start writing, and it occurs to me that had I simply written this a long while ago and accepted the fact that a good number of my blog entries are going to be pretty lame, I could just write them and be done with them, and hope that my friends are patient with the fact that some of them will be pretty lame.
Hey...at least I keep my paragraphs short. I can't help but notice that when someone writes a blog entry with a long paragraph, I shy away. It just starts to feel academic to me, and I want to read a blog entry, not a doctoral dissertation. This is just me.
So I keep my paragraphs short. Sometimes they have as few as two sentences.
Sometimes they only have one.
And sometimes, it's not even a sentence in the paragraph.
Just a fragment.
That's it.
Anyway, at some point, it feels as if maybe it's time to stop writing, and I can't help but think that the person reading it kind of feels as if they've been cheated, that they really didn't get much of a reading experience.
But then I think: maybe I'm doing a service.
For all I know, maybe the person reading this has a blog that they haven't updated in a long time, and they need a simple method to procrastinate as they agonize over the way that there's this gap between how good they want their blog entry to be, and how good they think it's going to be. Maybe they need to read a blog entry that is light on substance, but one that contains simple words that allow them to just sort of sit there, feeling like they're doing something when in fact they're really not doing that much.
Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing that leads to that person finally realizing that the only option is to just write the blog entry, and give it some sort of heading like "Another Lackluster Post On Not Having Written in a Long While."
And then maybe, just maybe, that post will inspire another person to update a blog that they haven't updated in far too long. This is a good thing, because then that person's friends say to themselves "well, at least he keeps writing his blog. It's so depressing when people abandon them."
Do have a happy new year. If you write, keep writing. I will do the same.
