About a couple months ago, I decided I was going to stop trying to force myself to write. I decided to do this in an attempt to overcome crippling writer’s retardation (forgive me if that’s offensive). I wasn’t suffering from writer’s block, because that’s too simple. I was struggling with entire idea of me being a “writer.” I started to seriously question it. “Maybe I’m just not that creative.” “Maybe I can’t write if I don’t have something to say.” “Maybe I’ve lost something since college.”
The truth is, all those ponderings carried some validity with them. But more simply than anything, I was essentially just starting to suck at life.That sounds incredibly self-loathing, and believe me, it sort of is. In fact, I’m not that much better at it now. However, I’ve identified that the problem and I’m working on making it not the case.
Allow me to elaborate. I was constantly struggling to find topics to write about. I would always come back to either writing about music or a new piece of software I’ve been testing out. Who the hell was I writing this for? The thousands of techies that hung on to my every word when it comes to new software and visit my blog daily? Music critics? No. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy writing those posts, but I was writing them because that’s what I had been involved in. My daily routine of coming home, throwing on headphones and humping my laptop for 4 or 6 hours was leaving me little to write about other than these topics.
So in efforts to expand that, all I would have to do is write on other areas of my life. Right? Nope, couldn’t because I didn’t really have anything else. Something has become very apparent to me recently – a sedentary lifestyle of complacency and false illusions of creativity don’t make for substantive writing. Or, more simply; lazy in life = lazy in writing = you’re a jerk.
So, I’ve thought long and hard about this and there’s somewhat of a prioritized list I’ve made in my head to combat this little syndrome of mine. And oddly enough, the end result of pursuing this list of goals is fostering better content of this blog. It’s not my main priority, but it will surely be a major outcome after tackling some of my bigger issues.
Somewhere along the way I forgot who I started this blog for – myself. I wanted it to be a tool to keep me in check; to keep me thinking introspectively and write content that mattered to me. I assured myself long ago that if I did this, readership from friends, family, and others would follow. But I veered hard and now I’m working to get back on course.
I have much to say about my thought processes as of late and I want to continue ongoing posts on the subject (somewhat narcissistically, that subject being myself) to help flush out some of these dilemmas. And I don’t want to burn myself out just yet, so stay tuned.
I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, IL. Just like any other good suburban kid, I did my family proud and went off to a state school, Illinois State University. There I received my degree in English Education. Lo and behold, I did not use that degree to teach high school students. I wound up doing something quite different; working for a bank. I am fascinated by social media and social networking and how it has an effect on our daily lives.
There’s hasn’t been much action on this site as of late but I have been posting very frequently over at DEF // DEC // POSS - my Tumblr. I suggest you head over there and check it out. I just revamped the theme and layout and it looks nice and pretty.
