Leaving Orbit

Well, here I sit again, trying to write a blog.

Recently, I was having beer with a couple of my author buddies, and we were talking about what it takes to write a blog. One of them has a really great blog with all kinds of interesting things in it, and the other one has only a slightly more modest offering. Both of theirs are a lot more expansive than anything I’d ever achieved.

They were both asking me why I didn’t have one… My answer literally stunned  them into silence.

“I don’t like writing… (pause)”

Since they know that I often I pound out upwards of 80,000 words in a month, for them to hear me say ‘I don’t like writing…’ was apparently too far outside their reality to comprehend. Of course, the long pause before I finished the sentence might have led to the explosive beer spewing on their parts (fortunately, we were appropriately socially distanced or I would have come home smelling like a brewery).

The sentence probably would have made more sense if I’d finished it…

“I don’t like writing, a blog.”

“Writing blog posts is a lot harder for me than writing novels.”

“Why?” one of them asked, looking at me with a confused expression as he finished absorbing the non sequitur I’d dropped on the table like a brick.

“Because I don’t know what to write about. When I’m writing a book, I have it all planned out… way in advance. That makes it easy. Writing a blog post is so, spontaneous. I just don’t know what to write that people would find interesting enough to read.”

“Write what you know. Write about what interests you,” the other one suggested. “Write about your books. All you have to do is write what’s on your mind.”

Yeah, sure.

“Physics, geo-engineering, stupid movies that annoy me, politics that absolutely piss me off,” I said, shaking my head.

“Well, maybe not politics, but otherwise, why not?”

So, I sat there thinking about writing a blog, while the pizza and beer slowly disappeared into the afternoon.

Just write? Could it really be that easy?

When I got home (well, actually, the next morning), I decided to tackle the problem of me not having one of those evil blog-things.

The first step was that I had to rebuild my website so that it made more sense for blogging.  Since I’d relentlessly removed all mention of such a creature from the previous versions of my author platform, I spent a week or so redesigning the site to make space for these new bloggish pursuits.

In order to make room, I had to get some new pages up before I could try it again. (That’s not an excuse to put it off… Nah. Not me. I’d never rationalize something like that!)

But, after building all the new stuff into the site that I could justify (and some I really couldn’t), I’ve finally run out of pages to create. That also means I’m out of excuses.

 


Everything else is done, and I’m staring at this blank screen, preparing to write my first new blog post. 

This time I’m determined to keep it going. I’ve discovered I do have stuff to put here, and I can make the commitment to keep at it until this gets to the point where writing a blog is a habit. (I’ve been told that will happen … eventually.)

Now that the countdown to launch has finally ended, I guess I’m really leaving orbit.

I’m not sure where I’m heading yet, but it will be out there somewhere (and if I get lost, blame Geoff and Zachry).

No matter where I go, hopefully there will be good beer.

EMC

(Oh hey, look at that. I guess I already finished my first post!)

One down …

 

Image Credit: The image above is an original render I did of the upgraded Olympus Dawn II from Season Two of Wings of Earth. The background is a NASA file image.

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