I woke at 4:58am and lay in bed watching the alarm clock until it rang, then, when the alarm went off I didn’t feel like getting out of bed and really had to push myself. Now that I’m out of bed it’s not so bad, of course. 🙂
Feeling completely uninspired in terms of writing this morning. I don’t know what to write about. Nothing of any particular interest has happened in the last 24 hours, really. Topics that I’ve considered:
- The weather. Well, beyond the passing mention (“it is not raining at the moment” or “it is really cold”), I don’t really think the weather is interesting enough to analyse. Although we have had a lot of rain lately.
- Books I have read. I seem to lack the confidence to write in detail about any books I have read, I find. My excuse is that I have not read anything with the intention of reviewing it, so I don’t have anything to say beyond “I liked it”. This extends to movies I have seen. (This sounds pathetic, hopefully now I’ve written it down I will get over it!)
- Work stuff. Now here there is a lot happening but I am still debating with myself how much I want to write about. I haven’t told anyone at work that I have been writing a blog, and I’m not sure I really want to!
- Life in general. Unfortunately my life isn’t that interesting…
- News/current events/politics. I think there are plenty of blogs out there concentrating on current issues and they do a far better job than I ever could.
In my defense this blog is experimental and I didn’t set out with any firm aims in mind, beyond playing with blogging packages and tools and writing about the early rising experiment!
However, if I don’t write about anything that interests me at least, not to mention my few readers out there, I will bore myself and lose interest. And I guess I am hoping that writing will help me to reflect. I like what this blogger, Tony Pierce, has to say about blogging.
One twenty-first century blogger’s vision:
“19. push the envelope in what youre writing about and how youre saying it. be more and more honest. get to the root of things. start at the root of things and get deeper. dig. think out loud. keep typing. keep going. eventually you’ll find a little treasure chest. every time you blog this can happen if you let it.”
Or this: ” Here’s some advice for starting out: Just write!” (See Russell’s guidelines for newbie bloggers).
Those injunctions made me think of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and the poet’s advice:
“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your while life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don’t write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place.” (pp. 6-8, Vintage Books edition, 1986)
Why do you write?