I have no shortage of ideas for blog posts these days. Most of them are pretty good ideas. And most of them I will never do anything with. Tonight, for example, while I was upstairs trying to get our three-year old to go potty before bed, my wife hollered from downstairs, “Don’t let her stick her finger up her ass.”
Right there I’ve got at least a half-dozen starting points for a blog. For example, my wife actually said put and bottom. Why did I just say stick and ass?
Why am I the one upstairs with my daughter trying to get her to go potty while my wife is downstairs uncorking the wine?
Why did I write uncorking the wine when my wife was not doing that at all, but just trying to get the dishes done before the girls went to bed so that the sound of dishes clacking in the sink didn’t disturb them as they nodded off?
Why is my gorgeous daughter (and she is really gorgeous, not just in my opinion but in scientifically verifiable fact) sticking her finger up her ass? How many grown up, gorgeous women stuck their finger up their ass as children? How might knowledge of this phenomenon somehow help shy men who are uncomfortable around gorgeous women be less uncomfortable? Why, when I tell my daughter that in polite society we do not stick our finger up our ass to make our poop come out, does my daughter shout at me until her vocal cords rip apart just to tell me that that’s the only way her poop can come out?
If I were really wanting to get blog posts out of this, I would have a field day.
But this stuff happens every day, and I don’t go anywhere near it.
I don’t like to write about my personal life. In fact, I usually can’t stand writing about it. At the end of the day, which is the only time I have for writing these days, my personal life is the last thing I want to write about. I write about stupid things, made up things, anythings, to get away from my personal life. Not that I don’t like my personal life. But at the end of the day, I want a break from it.
I’m not interested in recounting my own adventures. Maybe because I’ve already lived them. Or wish I hadn’t. Or am frustrated by them. But even when I love every minute of them, I’m not usually interested in writing about them.
I am interested in observation and reflection. And that may lead me to something I want to write about it. I may approach it as a story with some truthiness to it, and it may or may not be based on something that actually happened, but it probably won’t recount what really happened. I may write about something I observe, or feel, or am obsessed with, but it won’t likely be something that I participated in. Because as soon as I write about something I participated in, I’m writing about my personal life, which I don’t like to do.
I think I just don’t like writing about myself. Unless I can write about me writing about myself, or how I write about myself, if and when I do. Which I guess is what I’m doing now.
waltbox 
I agree it is not the forming of ideas for blog postings but the writing about them. What at times (like when you are falling asleep) seems like a wonderful posting, the next day makes no sense. I have found that after a number of years of musing about political idiocy one becomes stated with the subject and looks for more fertile ground. The problem for me however is the passion to write about “life” is not the same as what is generated by anger or frustration by our government representatives.
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I’ve found its best if I let a post simmer for a day or two before it goes up. Helps me not make a mistake. I may still make the mistake, but at least it will be a calculated one.
It’s easy to get riled up by those guys isn’t it? I’ve written some nasty things about them, but in general I feel it’s better if I leave that to others who know more than me.
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Still giggling. Loved this.
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I like giggles, both giving them and catching them.
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Walt! You are a very entertaining writer. *laughs* This was highly enjoyable.
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Thank you! And good to have you back this week, Old Sport. You were missed!
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*bows*
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I can totally relate to the self-editing of stories of your own life. That’s how we self-mythologize, isn’t it? The stories – of our own lives – grow in the telling. But there’s always that underlying truth. I often start blog posts thinking I’m going to be writing about one thing and then it peels aways into something else about half-way through. I might look like the lede was buried way too deep, but it’s really just peeling away surface stories to get to the truth underneath.
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You’re on to something there. I’ve noticed a lot of peeling away in blogs, but I hadn’t contextualized it that way…good observation. Now, will the pirates doing that in space? 😉
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Ha ha ha, the pirates will be doing *SO MUCH* in space.
In truth, though, I think I was about half-way in the first draft when I realized how autobiographical so many portions of it were. Obviously neither the piracy nor the space, but more so the coming-of-age elements.
That’s really the kind of subtext you can’t force, otherwise it seems heavy-handed; it has to bleed in there of its own accord.
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Ah, so pirates coming of age in space, then!
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I experience the opposite: All I write about are my “own adventures.”
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I know, I’ve read a bunch of them! Including the one where somebody made a comment along those lines that you didn’t like none too much. I guess I don’t mind doing it once in a while. But it’s not in my bones to do it regularly.
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