Or perhaps stupid?
I thought this would be a good illustration for my answer to the first of Pensive Wanderer's three questions. I figured I'd answer them one by one, because they require such meaty answers. So, here is the first installment of Pensive Wanderer's three-part interview:
"How do you have time to create and maintain a blog?"
Have you seen my house? Have you seen the piles of laundry in my laundry rooms? Have you seen my yard and my sinks and my litter box? Have you seen how much I make my kids work?
Okay, here's the truth: if I didn't write, I would explode. It is, no joke, the honest-to-God truth. I have stacks of journals beginning from when I was just a young pup.
Dear Diary,
Today is my tenth birthday. I got a photo album and a diary...
Writing, for me, is not an option. It's a requirement. Without it, my sanity would be even more questionable than it already is.
A few people have written to me recently asking me how to blog. I'm not sure, honestly, if I can answer that. For me, I actually have to narrow down the number of blog entries I make in a day. If I didn't exercise some self-control, I would literally read and write all day long. My children would become strangers and my husband would sit at my feet begging for my attention. I would write non-stop. You would tire of it quickly. It's just a shame that one can't make a living out of such a thing. ;-)
I read a lot of essays. I love essays. I've loved essays since discovering them in my American Humor class in college. Essays are like sitcoms with meaning. Everything is tidy within just a few hundred words or so. One of my current favorite essayists is Real Live Preacher. In one of his essays (though I can't find which it was) he says that it's important to stick to the topic and not wander too far off course when writing an essay. Not a lot of background info. Not a lot of exposition. Just the facts, man.
So, that's what I've been thinking about when I write an essay. That's how I blog. Take a little topic and expound on it, being careful not to veer too far off course. If there's something in there worth veering for, it goes into a different blog entry. Believe me, I don't have nearly enough time to blog all of the thoughts in my head. Isn't that a scary thought.
As far as having enough time to create a blog, well...that's easy. That only takes a few minutes. It does, however, take some time to tweak it, to make it look homey, to step into your skin. While I like mine alright, I do wish I had something with more pizazz and uniqueness, like this one or this one or, WOW, look at THIS one. . There are plenty of online tutorials to give you some guidelines on simple html. The key is to save your html code in something like wordpad or notepad or something along those lines when you get it the way you want it. And always preview your changes first. Check my source code to see how I make notes to know what I've just changed and how to change it back if I want.
I guess the beauty of blogging is that you can write, write, write. Just sit down and let it flow, baby! You can save it as a draft and come back to it later, or you can publish it and edit at will.
And, most importantly, don't put it off! When you get an idea, sit down and WRITE IT DOWN. If it's crap, flush it. If it's a keeper, well...keep it! I often find that what I've begun doesn't end nearly how I thought it would.
If you find yourself at a loss for words, use stream of consciousness or, as I saw in another blog, bullet points. Right out your day in bullet points or outline form. If the blog is for you and you alone, write out the most important things you want to remember and to heck with what others would think.
And, remember, you needn't keep just one blog. You can keep one for your knitting projects, one for your daily goals, one for your favorite recipes, one for your schooling progress, one for your music discoveries, one for politics (if you absolutely MUST add another political blog!), one about Aunt Edna's health.
There's no limit.
So, I must now crawl back into my cozy bed and hold my foggy head, visions of blog essays dancing around inside my throbbing brain.
Go blog.
