Natasha Fondren

*blinks sleepily* I was up most of the night, and then when I finally slept, I dreamed of a large paper grocery bag dispensing advice. It was a proper oracle, with a face painted on it and everything.

I want a new blog design. Stacey Graham’s beautiful re-design put me in the mood. Any thoughts, suggestions? What worked for you in this blog design, and what totally didn’t?

It seems cluttery to me right now. And you know how I am about clutter.

I’m also coming up with a new blogging plan. When I had a life that was somewhat settled, I could be creative about thinking of life in new ways for a blog post every day. But now that I’m building a new life, it seems all my creativity goes into that, instead of blogging.

And I miss blogging.

So…

What would you like me to write about most? Which posts do you enjoy reading the most?

I’ve let blogging dissipate. Two weeks ago, I was convinced this was fine. I thought of blogging as only a social activity (still is, for me), and Facebook took over that area of my life.

But I didn’t realize how important blogging was to my writing productivity until the other day. First, I blogged, and then writing went well. Second, someone’s blog or status update made me realize that back when I blogged every day, I was nailing higher word counts more easily. Writing was going MUCH better.

That realization surprised me. I know Erica blogs to “warm up” the writing in the morning. And many, many writers wrote letters and essays to warm up or practice their writing skills, before blogs or computers were around.

 The largest benefit is having to organize my thoughts—very, very difficult for me, as we’ve already ascertained. (Fish Oil helps a lot, wow, a lot.) A blog post is small enough to make organizing my thoughts doable, and large enough to exercise my brain’s muscle in doing so.

Secondly, it helps to write in complete sentences. Sometimes this comes naturally to me, and sometimes it doesn’t. I can’t tell you how many writing days I have (about 50%), where just bits come out of my fingers. It’s awful. It seems that writing a sentence ought to be easy for a writer, but some days my brain is so disorganized, that it’s edging toward impossible. I even struggle with it in blog posts, but it’s easier: in a blog post, every sentence need not be as vivid and honed as in fiction. (Maybe it should be, but…)

Third, it forces me to say something, to come up with an idea, to develop it, and to deliver it.

And finally, I get to practice the “finishing” muscle. A novel takes forever and ever to write. Months. Every day, I’m left feeling I have more to do. The task is never completed. Even if I hit the word count, the incompleteness of the entire work nags at me.

Finishing a blog post is satisfying. It gives me that I-did-it feeling, plus the pride of completion—important feelings to practice often. And it’s a reminder that I can finish things, when in the midst of a novel, this confidence can fade, and then writing becomes a struggle.

I think these arguments can also be applied to writing poetry, flash fiction, and short stories—other things I need to start doing more of.

So my goal, from now on, is to compose a blog post, flash fiction, poem (*cringe* as I’m so bad at it), or half a short story every day.

And I should be back on the blogging circuit more. I need to organize my Reader. I have at least 200 feeds, and frankly, that’s too many. I need to at least get my closest friends in one folder so I can read you guys first off, instead of having you disappear amongst 1,000+ unread posts.

Have you let blogging slide? Do you notice any benefits to blogging? Do you write short stories or poems or anything else, to help you write novels? Or just to help you be a writer?

I’ve been possessed of indecision lately. About everything. I have, no kidding, THIRTY-NINE blog posts half-started, half-written, some almost-all-written, and then I think, “meh.”

What is up with that?

A lot have to do with how I write. They seem so silly, because how I write is not how to write. So what use is that to you?

Others are political. And if I post about politics, then I have to be open to debate. Honestly, lately, politics make me tired. In general, people aren’t interested in listening, they are not open to changing their minds no matter what the facts are, so debate seems pointless. And sometimes… a lot of opinions are so uncompassionate that it just… I don’t know. As a society, we dehumanize and we withdraw compassion a lot. And that makes me tired, too.

I’m… I don’t know. I look around and I cry a lot. And the politics surrounding what I consider humanitarian issues make me cry.

And feel defeated.

A few blog posts are rants, and those just seem self-indulgent, and I worry people will take it personally and think I’m talking about them. And really, does the world need more negative energy?

Then there are some to do with my travels, but I want to wait until I can post pictures, and my camera is broken. I should be getting a new one in a couple weeks.

Some are to do with books I’ve read. But honestly, I find book reviews just a little bit boring. I used to do posts about how an author did whatnot, and that was interesting to me, but I’m not sure if it’s interesting to anyone else.

I’m the same way with commenting on blogs. Unless the blogger actually asks a question, I don’t know what to say. You know? So I just read and don’t comment.

*sigh* What is this? I’m Eeyore today or something.

So which blog topics that I write about do you like best? Which should I do more? What should I talk about? Any other ideas? I’m lost.

And how were your holidays?