Tag: writing

Blog Sleep, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

sleeping dogThe good thing about letting a blog go to sleep for a long time is that it has a chance to get clarified. Actually it is your own mind as a writer that goes through that refining process. After a good long while, you ask yourself the question, should I wake it up? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie…. ?

It isn’t as simple as that, though, if I am honest. I have asked myself the questions numerous times, in a sequence of phases.

Refine, Eliminate

The first phase was elimination. The things I didn’t want to write about, the topics I tired of, and the inevitable decisions about cutting out the unnecessary.

I became disgusted and tired of the political wars and polarities that could no longer be bridged. The futility of religious arguments that ran through the same old ruts, and writing about the newest and coolest became utterly  boring. Cut | Cut | Cut.

I cut from my thinking and my conversation, and certainly cut from my writing.

Road To [Some Destination]

This was the second phase. Deciding the destination.

We all have choices in which way to point ourselves, and the purpose of a blog is no different. We may not have complete control over life’s conditions, but we can decide which way we will position ourselves.

I almost spoke of “acts”, but we can’t always decide that. We can, however, take a view or attitude about life’s conditions.

The Power of the Positive

This phase, for me involved the increased position of the positive. In fact, the more negatively life (and the people involved)  has impacted me, the more important it has become to entertain the positive view.

This attitude shift has resulted in wanting to write different topics in different ways than the blog had previously manifested.

The destination has changed, or maybe I had detoured and am returning to the original intent? Possibly, I have discovered the intent that was buried inside the concretions of my life when first blogging.

Today, understanding rather than opining is more important to me. I used to want to be humble, and right, but now humility comes from the realization of how very wrong I could be. In mode, if not in view.

I say ” I just don’t know” so often, at this point.  That would be very boring, if not for the fact that it leads me to explore more thoughtfully, now.

Creativity Needs Sleep to Survive

Something every creative person experiences is the need to rejuvenate the juices of inspiration. The body needs rest, but so does the inner man.
How many times do we experience a project bogging down, and its revival after leaving it alone for awhile? I have that regularly happen in many things: making art, writing, self-improvement, problem-solving, learning a new computer program.

This Blog

I liked a lot of what went into this blog in the past. The thinking out of theology or what went on in society. Looking at family life, and roles, etc. And there have been numerous times I thought I would like to record the thoughts I am having about some of this stuff now.

What I like about putting these posts into a sleeping blog is that there is no pressure of an audience, just the pure creative desire to record the thinking process about matters of importance in my perspective at the time.

Updates Will Come

One thing I noticed when evaluating this blog is that many of the old style posts: short, sending attention to links or other blogs (many of which are defunct now) are superfluous and need culling.  Eventually, re-arranging old categories and other blog housework seems in order. But mostly, I will just add posts on topics that interest me, from time to time.

Let’s see where it goes.

It’s Not About Tequila

At least not for me, it isn’t.
So, I was reading about the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle because the Third Tribe sent me there. (I joined them this year because of just what the tequila post was really about). It isn’t just because I would like to somehow turn my garden site into an itty business, but because I want my blogging to have meaning, and purpose. And I want to feel I am making headway with my writing and let it at least break even in paying for itself instead of borrowing from the family budget ( somewhat like the government “borrows” from the Social Security funds.)

So, yes, honestly… I would like the affiliate relationships with Amazon and Google, etc, to help me with the hosting for my garden site, the premium templates, and all the other things that were once free on the net, but have become more necessary to pay for in creating a better quality output.

I once did everything free, both on my side of it and other’s side of it. It isn’t that I don’t still, but the realities are that everyone has to make a living. Oh forget this detour- I really wanted to talk about avoidance.

What This Was Really About
The Worm Post began describing the trough I often find myself in, not just in blogging, but in life.

It goes like this:

sometimes people love what you’ve got, love you, and shower you with roses and orders and blog comments and 83% organic dark chocolate.

And sometimes? Sometimes, not so much.

Sometimes it’s dead quiet out there and you feel a tad exposed. You troll Twitter and everyone’s tweets are so peppy, all about how great their businesses are doing, you start to feel a tad bad. The story line, “What was I thinking?” starts sucking you in.

I get sucked into that dark pit more than I like to say. I get sucked into it as a Christian. Sometimes because of the type of Christian I am. I wonder how much of us is what we make ourselves, not because we are so powerful at it, but because of how helpless we are to really see facts. We labor under false assumptions and vague presumptions we pick up along the way of life. Not blaming anybody, it just seems that we humans are very prone to this.

So I followed the post through to the “assessment”. That is what I call the analysis + resolution of pinpointing these problems.

Like I said, I don’t have a history with tequila, but when we got to this point *__________ (fill in your favorite avoidance technique here), I knew we were talking about me and where I go ( I tend to do avoidance technique #Surfing the Internet until your butt goes numb and your heart grows stiff)

These avoidance techniques are what I call “Shadow Comforts,” things we turn to for fulfillment, but which don’t really fill us up.

Ouch. sounds like the Preacher talking to the Sinner, here, right? So how come I identify?
The “Nifty Tips” all sound like things that could work on any battle with depression, etc., but I reduce it down to get rest, develop awareness, get perspective.
I will be translating that into my lifestyle context, and leave it to to you take what you want for yourself.

I Meant To Write

I’ve said that alot in life. I love to write, actually, and have for as long as I have a memory of being capable of putting pen to paper and making word pictures with it. I have that active sort of mind that likes to form thoughts and plays with ways of expressing them, but it seems that I need to have a certain inspiration, a certain mode, to work within. Is this a flowery excuse? No, I am past excuses… it is more about the time it takes to birth writing that communicates not just the structure of the thought, but its spirit.

It isn’t like the experience I have of taking photos. In photos there is a mix of the moment, the equipment, and the eye. Then there is that obsessive need to record what one wants others to see. I think that last part is what writers share most with photographers. But for me the pen has more in common with the artist brush. There is that thing called “the muse”: the time when the idea and the mode all come together in a mad rush to create.

Too often that is what I want happening when I mean to write, but don’t.

Right now, I partially blame winter. This time of year I find I lack “heart”. My heart is not in the creation process, maybe a result of cabin fever- being cooped up with less to stimulate creativity, too much stored up information, maybe some ennui. Perhaps that is why some people slack off from their New Year’s resolutions – the shine has gone off the goals and we kick into a type of survival mode.

Too, I think perfection is something of an enemy. In the quest to give our best efforts to crafting the beauty or the precision of expression we become entangled in over thinking to the point where the original thought and effort now seems pointless. That is too bad, since many small ideas inspire and come together into something much larger than the sum of its parts. A collage is made of a number of very mundane components, but the way it is arranged and the texture formed from the composite results in something of specific and sometimes moving meaning.

The lack of heart may be something else, though. Plain old vanilla procrastination and laziness means that the best ideas are never brought into the light.

And so, I take stock and decide that in order to write something of value, or beauty, or meaning will require a little bit of focus through setting goals, jotting down ideas in a common place, siphoning it into actions that bring dreams to life.

Now I think I have a plan.

The Right Questions

Remarking about the print magazine/newspaper debacle as it tries to face the reality of online journalism, WSJ says:

For years, publishers and editors have asked the wrong question: Will people pay to access my newspaper content on the Web? The right question is: What kind of journalism can my staff produce that is different and valuable enough that people will pay for it online?

Information wants to be free
Good question for us all.

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