BLOG - Why I'm doing this?

OK. This blog is a classic example of "everybody else is doing it, so..." However, as a writer, I can come up with a better story than that, and there is one. So, why am I starting a blog right now?

I'm a major cat person. I have five cats: Snowy, Peabrain, Chessie, Dulcinea, and Ninotchka. Al, a friend of mine in Indiana, knows this, and forwarded me an e-mail about how Pope Benedict XVI is very, very fond of cats. (That was the perfect e-mail to get my attention, because I, despite not being Catholic, have been very fascinated by all the machinations around the papal election. I don't know why. I've spent the last month picking up all sorts of trivia about the papacy, also. My favorite tidbit: when asked by someone how many people worked in the Vatican, Pope John XXIII once replied "about half." However, I digress.)

I haven't heard from Al in a while, so I e-mailed back. "Hi! How are you?" Pretty generic. I figure she's settled in to her new house by now, so she'll have time to write.

She was at work. She basically said, "I'll write more when I get home," gave me her new phone number, and referred me to her blog.

So, it was time to read the blog: http://allisonsgripes.blogspot.com/ . (BTW, if you're wondering, I'm the "friend in Florida who LOVES trains" that she mentioned in her first post.) I was amazed me how much of her personality comes through in it. It was a good quick read. (Translation: Read my friend's blog!!!)

(And, Al, you have my sympathy regarding Alarm Clock Guy! I live next door to a guy who likes to rev his motorcycle at five in the morning on Saturday! This is literally right outside my bedroom window. I also used to live in an apartment where my bedroom wall doubled as a crash barrier for skaters--I half expected one of these Tony Hawks wannabe teen twerps to crash through my window and land on my bed, but fortunately for all, that never happened. Again, I digress.)

Anyway, I noticed she said in her profile that, "I started this blog to kick-start a writing 'habit' that will make me think of some new ideas for the book," and that she's "in a constant state of writer's block on this novel I've been working on for the past nine years." That sounds like someone else I know who's a little closer to me--specifically, someone who's typing his blog right this moment at this computer.

OK, I actually wrote most of a novel--twice. Both of these aborted efforts will likely stay on my computer until after I'm dead in order to preserve my reputation as a writer. Maybe I can salvage pieces, but that's being extremely optimistic. Shakespeare had Titus Andronicus, so I'm not too worried about my first efforts stinking. We're only talking a couple of weeks' work in both cases. Now the real challenge: actually write something I would like to read. (Come to think of it, some real crud gets published/made into movies. Maybe there's hope for income from those first two efforts after all!) I've had several pieces of ideas dancing around my head for a while--a couple that I might be ready to put fingers to keyboard for very soon, but, like Al, I've let stupid stuff distract me from writing. (In my case, it's not "The Sims," but "Grand Theft Auto.")

So, I started a blog to get back into the habit of writing. Classic example of "leap before you look"--I didn't actually think to ask Al if her blog has helped her make any progress on her novel. Nor did my old movie review website (www.reviewsbyjohn.com) really solve the problem for me. Ben Franklin once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"--but this isn't quite the same thing, and I already suspected I was crazy.

Then again, as I said earlier, I digress.