Waiting for Inspiration

I was thinking on what to write this morning and I began to think about the process I go through when writing a blog. In thinking I came to the realization that it will be one year since I posted my first blog and although I haven't been writing something every single day, I have written something often enough that I have a couple of hundred posts. Do I really have that much to say? Some of you out there probably don't think I say much of anything each time I write but there are a lot of you out there who come here every so often to see what else I may have written about. I like to think that I have a variety of interests and as such, I didn't want to pigeonhole myself into being able to blog about only one thing, hence the meaning behind the title of my blog. I wanted to be able to blog about whatever I felt I thought I had something to talk about. My opinions are purely my own and for good or for bad, no matter what, I say what I feel on certain subjects.

That leads to the next question that many of my family and friends have asked is how do I decide on what to write. It's not an easy question to answer and although I like to write, it's not like I can put pen to paper... or in this case fingers to keys, and begin typing away. My process is not a scientific one but then again, it isn't completely random either. What I mean is that I have a fairly decent sized commute. I don't think it's overly long but it is long enough for me to hear the radio and find out what's been going on in the world. By time I get to the office, there are a number of things that I have heard that may bring about some inspiration on a subject and inspire me to blog about it. There are some days where there are absolutely no stories and, much to my brother's chagrin, those are usually the days that there happens to be an article relating to Starbucks which leads me to write about it. The way I figure it, if it is good enough for a major newspaper or news service, it's not bad for my blog.

Now comes the hard part for many people and that's the writing. It's not an easy thing to express why you have an opinion on something. Again, many people think that it's a simple matter of committing the words to the chosen medium of paper, or computer screen but it isn't. I have been a bad writer for a long time in the sense that I don't always follow the one thing that helps some of the best writers get their ideas out and that's to do with outlining. I rarely outline the flow of my blogs simply because I want whatever I am thinking or feeling at the time to come to the paper. You can take hours to say something but then it loses the naturalness of what you're trying to say. You can spend time thinking about how you're going to link one concept to another but then all you end up with is a thesis and not a blog expressing your ideas or feelings.

I always thought the best thing about a blog was that you could say whatever you wanted in whatever way you felt was most appropriate. But I also always remember that it's a very public place and people often put out their private ideas and that can be a blessing or a curse. I have tried to steer clear of topics such as politics and religion not because I am ambigous about either but I don't want to get into sparring matches with over whether candidate A is better than cadidate B and why their view on country C is detrimental to the security of our nation. I think there are far more learned people out there whose opinion probably matters much more than mine, but at the very least, I can bring the topic up and put it out there.

But what do you write? That's the question I always get. I look at it like this; if someone asks you whether you liked a movie or a book, you can simply say yes or no. Some people would say you've given your response, so what more is there? But the next question is why did or didn't you like it? There have to be some underlying reasons and if so, what are they? By building upon these arguements, you will slowly build up your blog and your arguement and soon you'll have a much more detailed response to someone's questions. I don't always have a whole lot to say on all topics but then again, what I have to say suffices for me and apparently for a lot of my readers. I keep searching for inspiration and it can often come from the most unlikely of places but it surely comes.