Answering the "Why" and the "What"

Hello, everyone!   Welcome to the blog.  This will be my third attempt to get a blog started and sustained, and hopefully the clichéd saying, “The third time’s the charm” holds true.  I’ve taken a lot more time and put a lot more thought into this attempt than the others.  I love writing, and one would think that a blog would come naturally to someone who enjoys it as much as I do.

So what happened?  Why the spectacular failures in the past?  It didn’t take me long to figure out why they failed; I didn’t have a plan.  I thought all I needed to do was log in, open up a new post and magical and meaningful words would spew forth onto the screen.  Clearly, that wasn’t the case.

Having taken some time to look at what other good blogs do, I’ve noticed the following things that they all have in common.

They know why they’re blogging, and they know what they’re blogging.  I asked myself these two questions, and a plan began to form.

For some it’s an opportunity to share their lives with friends, family, and strangers.  For others, they are trying to reach out to people and establish an audience or fan base for some of their other work.   Some people simply need to see their thoughts and dreams written in front of them to be able to process them. 

So why am I doing this? 

As I mentioned earlier, I love to write.  It has been a dream of mine since I was a child to write books.  I began seriously writing short fiction when I was in college.  That was also when I realized I didn’t only love writing, I wasn’t too bad at it either.  Well, eventually graduation came and went and I no longer got to check the Student box under employment.  Real jobs and responsibilities took over, and I stupidly thought I should put the writing on the shelf for a bit until I got settled. 

That was dumb.

Writing is like any other skill a person possesses.  It requires practice in order to improve, and I haven’t been practicing near as much as I should be.  I more or less have myself settled in the real world (whatever that means) and I started writing again a couple years ago.  I was rusty.   You don’t walk away from baseball after a couple years and then immediately step in the batters box and hit home runs off 90 mph fastballs.

I pitter-pattered around for a while planning stories and not starting them.  Starting other stories and not finishing them, and doing a lot of talking about writing without actually writing.  Something had to be done.  I needed to come up with some way to make myself write and at the same time keep myself accountable for the bigger projects I start. 

That’s where this blog comes in.  It’s my practice arena.  What better way to practice writing than to sit down and actually write?  It’s my accountability buddy.  What better way to keep reminding myself to work on the big stuff than to write about it and share how the project is going?   Excuse me for a moment while I pat myself on the back for a moment to congratulate myself for successfully answering the first question.  I found my why.

Ok.  So what the hell am I going to write about?

In the past I would have given and excited yet uninformed reply of, “EVERYTHING!”  No.  Focus, Sean.   That was what got me into trouble the first couple of blogs.  Everything might as well mean nothing.  When I decided I was going to blog about everything that entered my head I got overwhelmed and lost.  Too many things to consider for blog topics led to me not doing any of them because I couldn’t decide.

So, knowing that I needed to narrow the focus considerably, I looked back at my answer to why I’m doing this.  Hmm…it seems to be heavily writer themed.  Here’s and idea, how about blogging about writing and books?  Score.

So what can we expect to see pop up on here from time to time?  Right now the plan is for updates and sharing experiences about working on the novel I’m starting (I’m in the pre-writing phase right now), occasional book reviews, and some short fiction that I’ll do now and then just to practice new things. 

I’m going to keep it pretty simple right now.  Just those three things to start with.  In time, who knows?  Maybe we’ll start a book club on here?  Maybe I’ll head to a few book events like signings or conventions and share my experiences with those.

So there you have it.  I’ve figured out my why and my what.  Now let’s strap in and get ready to enjoy the ride.