30 Days of Blogging

So I have a blog, and occasionally I make posts to it, most of which are maudlin dispositions and ruminations on the inexorable nature of age and entropy.

I think it's because this blog isn't really -about- anything, and if you read tech news you get a lot of input that basically nobody reads a blog unless you happen to be a columnist, or Guy Kawasaki, or Martin Fowler, or Cory Doctorow or you write a provocative title and get picked up by Digg or popurls (bane of my working existence).

It's the Larry Niven effect; every time I feel like writing sci-fi I look at his stories and think "how the hell could I possibly add anything to this genre?" or of course horror/mystery with King, screenplays with the likes of Scorcese and Tarantino, etc. And every time I write a blog it winds up with "what's it matter anyhow?"

I'd like to change this, specifically because I want to:

• Redevelop my writing habit - I recently worked with someone on a little collaborative fiction (we swapped story ideas we were stuck on) and it felt pretty good. I could use a little feeling good right now.


• Do a little goal and interest exploring - maybe writing is still open to me as an option?

So I will never be famous. So I will probably never even get paid for anything besides my Paint Check article from the 1990s (mental couch note: maybe link that). I have to be OK with that if this is going to work.

So here's my thesis and rules. My rules in this case are to keep this from turning into yet another half-a-page-of-scribbled-lines project:

1. Create 1 blog entry every day for 30 days.


2. Write in the morning if possible, just so you can have it done early.


3. No blogging from work.


4. NO encoded personal stuff, no "I should X, why can't I X, why do I suck so much, what a terrible person I am" type dramatics.


5. Flash fiction is OK if you must, but use some restraint, old boy.


6. Blog entries have to have a structure:
   
   
   
   • Thesis - something the entry is about, not just "here's something from the news and now I am going to whine about my fecklessness and inability to X"
   
   
   • Supporting point 1
   
   
   • Supporting point 2
   
   
   • Observation
   
   
   • Summary
   
   
   
   

So what if I am not Penelope Trunk, who to me is the perfect blogger. She's observant, insightful, writes from a basis of real-world experience, is brutally honest and gives others a chance to share their perspective.

So what if no one is reading. The important thing is that I am writing, and the potential that these entries will be read someday means that I need to put at least a modicum of craftsmanship into them. Maybe that will help me find a little personal and professional direction. We'll see.

1 down, 29 to go.