The Dog Ate My Blog

Writing is hard.

This is not news to anyone who has ever labored over a term paper (and isn't it big of me to assume that all of my followers—all 13 of you!*—have at least an 8th grade education?), but it's no less true for all that.

I suppose, however, that it's more accurate to say that coming up with ideas about which to write are hard. Me, I'm relatively good at beginnings. My brain gets pelted with ideas like a surly C&W crowd hurls bottles of long neck beer when the singer forgets the words to a Hank Williams tune (at least that's how it happens in my head, internets; I'm not much for the honky or the tonk, myself—though I will admit to harboring big love in my heart for cheap Shiner Bock).

So... yeah. Ideas.

I'm not much of a closer. Here's what happens in my brain, only with less science and more whimsy:

My degree is actually in English, and SMU (my alma mater) offers a fiction writing specialty. I loved the classes but ye gods and little fishes... I sucked at outlines. I didn't know where the story was going to go! I had An Idea! My Muse could not be so tamed or restricted (or some such rot). I don't know if it was laziness or if my brain truly doesn't work that way, but I almost never knew where the story was going to go, which meant that it could never get anywhere. Pacing, structure... these things elude me still. (Wow, if that's not an allegory for my life, I don't know what is!)

ANYhoo... when I do get ideas, they're never convenient. (I'm pretty sure my long-neglected Muse is having an aneurysm right about now.) I get 90% of my viable ideas when I'm in the shower. Really? I guess because I'm pondering last night's dream while simultaneously mapping out my day? Something about that combination puts my brain into overdrive, but it's utterly unfair because I can't write down ideas, nor can I bring a voice recorder into the shower. Well, I could, but it would only end in tears. Namely mine. So.. no.

And of course by the time I'm done drying, moisturizing, toning, lotioning, and powdering all the appropriate bits, then engaging in the usual Hair Product Inequity^TM ritual, ideas have fled, and I am (to quote my Grandfather) left and bereft.

Of course, the other time my brain is rife with ideas? When I'm driving. Because clearly, hurtling 80MPH down the interstate is a grand time to pause and jot down some notes. Sure, I'll just reach for the handy dandy recorder instead. Clearly, that's a safer option (in a not kind of way).

So instead, I'm left with trying to reconstruct pieces of these ideas when I can give them the time and attention they deserve, only it's rather like waking and knowing you just had the most awesome dream! It was so vivid! So real! Something about... ponies... or rainbows... and there was this guy. He, um, said some... stuff.

Yeah, internets. It's like that.

But hey, that's why I'm engaging in this whole blogging exercise, innit? To give myself some structure, and to write something other than the training courses that my Real Job pays me to write. CONFESSION: I haven't been using my degree much since I started writing for a living—how sad is that? But it feels too much like... well, work. But that's the WHOLE POINT! It is work, and the you get better by working at it.

I know this is true. I am friends with awesome writers like these and many more inspiring talents who fill me with awe (and some small amount of shame) at the amount of critical thought they're able to apply to their craft.

This is because, internets, there are days like today where you blog about not having ideas, which is the blogging equivalent of a show about nothing, or the dog eating your blog post.

Apparently, the difficulty lies not in lacking something to say, but in saying something in a meaningful way.

My bad.





*To reinforce my Nerdy Grrl cred, I quote Felicia Day: "I have dozens of fans. Baker's dozens. They come in thirteens."