Writer’s Block
8p.m, Saturday: As I settle in with my snugglerug and my laptop to write another blog, my mind turns over a few times and generates something that I can only liken to apple peel. You know those handy little gadgets that core and peel an apple while you turn the handle? At the moment, it feels like my mind is comparable to the apple – nothing solid on the outside to write about, and nothing deep and meaningful… just the in-between, middle-ground stuff like ‘my cat just threw up on the carpet’ and ‘I hate the way plastic drink bottles get that taste after a while’. So in one hand I hold the bare bones – the apple peel of an intellect, which is whispering things like ‘write about what you did today’ or ‘write it all in haiku’. In the other hand is the apple – and at this time of year, it’s a fifty-fifty chance whether the content in that apple is floury and unpalatable or if it’s just slightly rubbery and crunch-less – and its telling me that while ‘sour tictacs are awesome’ may be a useful piece of information to the average blog-reader, it’s not really an inspiring, heart-felt message. (although… they really are that good!)
My problem, of course, is that while I’ve sorta mapped out my week’s worth of blogs, I’m writing for me, (ok, slightly for the few who read this as well) and that becomes a problem because I don’t have any engulfing passions to write about on a regular basis. iDigDan’s blog is full to the brim with helpful iPhone reviews, complaints and general news, DocFox’s review blog is a good place to immerse yourself if you’re a gamer, and Grumpy Toast is just so darn cute (and brand new. Aww!). But I just tend to ramble down whatever path takes my fancy… and often come up with nothing but a few leaves stuck in my hair and a nasty case of poison ivy.
So what options are open to the writer’s-blocked blogger? I could use a handy-dandy blog filler of the ‘ten things you didn’t know about me’ persuasion (actually… I really love those things. But I wouldn’t inflict them on you). I could shamelessly plug my friend’s bl… wait, I already did that. I could share my favourite photos and pictures, but I think you’ve already seen them all. I could even share the latest work by somebody else, with a few sentences about why I chose to put it here. And yet, here I am, twenty seven minutes later, with 450 words about what I could have done…
Of all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: “it might have been.” – John Greenleaf Whittier (isn’t that a fantastic name! I think more people should name their sons Greenleaf.)
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