Monday, April 2, 2012

Profound or ordinary?

It's been a long while since I've blogged here. Why is that? I have lots of good intentions but they never seem to translate into action.

 I just returned from a wonderful 2 day writers conference held by Northern Colorado Writers. I attended many informative and interesting sessions.

Among them was Laurie Macomber's Writing for the Web. Laurie gave us an amazing, almost overwhelming, amount of information about how to write meaningful and useful copy for our websites and also about blogging.

 One thing she said stuck with me. If you are going to blog, it must be almost every day or at a minimum once a week. Whoa!! Wait a minute.....who has time to do that? Then I paused. Why am I balking at doing what I love to do once a day or even a couple of times a week? I love to write so what's up with that?

 I needed to get honest with myself. What exactly is holding me back? Is it plain old procrastination? Not really, I'm usually a "get it done" kind of person. Is it fear? No, I'm not afraid to put my writing or my thoughts out there for all to see. Is it a lack of inspiration or ideas? No, definitely not. I'm overflowing with them. Then what?

 I examined further what happens to me as I go along through the thought process of what to write and I discovered something.....I want to be profound! I want to say something earth shattering, I want to give my readers and Aha! moment, I want what I write to be meaningful and lingering. What a load of b.......t!

Then I had a revelation....Blogs aren't about being profound. Blogs are your ultimate stream of consciousness stuff just arranged better so others aren't left scratching their heads. BLOGS ARE ORDINARY.

That's the thing that was standing in my way. I just couldn't stomach the idea that my writing, and my ideas, might be ordinary. Who wants to be ordinary? We all want to be special don't we?

So now I'm cringing at myself. I need to get real. I need to get down to earth. I need to eat some humble pie. If you are still reading and wondering where this is all going, then you are not alone. So am I. What next for my blog? What next for my writing? And most importantly, what next for my ego?

Watch this space.......

9 comments:

  1. Hi Gillian. Next year you should participate in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge like I'm doing. That will get you going for sure.

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    1. Thanks Pat....next year I'll get right (or write) on it!

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  2. Gillian... It is your right to write your life/blog as you see fit. Ordinary (hardly) or not, only you can write it your way. If not, someone else might write it for you, and I doubt they'd get it right at all.

    I look forward to visiting here often. And knowing you, even for the short time that I have, I know we will scoff at ordinary here.

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    1. Thanks Dean. I'll try not to be ordinary too often. Some might use the word "weird." I prefer "individual"!!

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  3. PS...That Darn Pat is always first to all the good stuff!!

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  4. I'm glad you were inspired to give blogging another try. The blog format has really helped me let go of some writing perfectionism. Though I still cringe when I discover one of my typos :-)

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  5. Gillian...I didn't get to this session at the conference so thanks for sharing such a great idea and inspiration.You really turned a light on for me Thanks!
    Pam Wolf

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    1. You are welcome Pam! There were sessions I didn't get to either. I wanted to be able to clone myself so I could go to them all. Maybe next year.....!

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  6. Thanks Jenny. I know what you mean. We writers just like to get it right don't we? It's good to want do our best but we mustn't let it get in the way of our productivity.

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