Writing About Having Nothing To Write About

Lately, I've been going through a dry spell with my writing, which is not uncommon to many writers.  “Writer’s block” is the most often-used term, and I've got it bad.  My two works-in-progress are not inspiring me, and I am struggling to come up with posts to put on this blog.  Then, this morning, it came to me.  Why not write about having nothing to write about?

Contrary to what it may appear, I don’t just dash off whatever is in my head and post it to Wicked Awesomology.  Some bloggers treat their blogs almost like a web-based diary that the public is invited to read.  Not me though.  I treat mine like a regular column that I would contribute to a newspaper or magazine.  As such, I have to strike a balance in my posts between things I want to write about and things viewers will want to read.

That awareness of audience tends to be what stymies me the most.  Back when I was teaching, I constantly stressed to my student the importance of keeping your audience at the forefront when you compose a piece of writing.  I've seen 10 year-old-boys put together ten page stories about Pokemon characters that make complete and perfect sense to them, but without background information would make virtually no sense to most other people, not to mention be of limited interest to anyone but themselves.  When choosing a topic about which to write for this blog, there are certain things I try to avoid.

Complaining:  Writing can be cathartic, and there is a great temptation to sit down and rip something a new one just to get it off my chest.  And while it may feel good to put together a piece like that, I believe that readers will only put up with it from time to time.  After all, with all the whiners in the world as it is, who wants to sit down and read more whining for entertainment?

Repetition: There is such a thing as taking a good idea and beating it to death.  I've seen the statistics on viewership of my various blog posts, and noted what type of articles has garnered the most viewers.  In general, it has been my nostalgia pieces about my childhood and teenage years.  Those posts are fun to write, and serve a personal purpose for me in preserving my memories, but are not the kind of thing I would want to write and readers would want to read every single week.  The same applies to posts about my cats and my hillbilly neighbors.  While they provide ample fodder, you can have too much of a good thing in this format.

Sports: I am a huge sports fan, but only post about them on rare occasion.  Wicked Awesomology is not a sports blog, and many of my readers are not that into sports.  Those who are may not be into the particular teams, events, or athletes that I am.  As such, there is a risk of a sports post being a complete wash for a sizable segment of my readership.  That doesn't mean I won’t write about sports.  It merely means that I am choosy about the topic.   For those readers who do not care for the Boston Red Sox, be thankful for this.

Controversy: Some people write to be provocative.  I am not one of those people.  The purpose of this blog is to entertain and also to give me a forum for flexing my writing muscles.  I stick to that focus for a simple reason: In order to attract and maintain regular readers, I need to be providing a somewhat consistent product.  Going from a gently humorous reflection on an adventure I had with my grandparents as a child in one week’s posting to a screed on the gun control debate in the next is too wild of a swing for most readers, I feel.  Of course I have plenty of personal opinions about politics and current events, and sometimes share them in person and on my Twitter account.  Only rarely will I post about politics or controversial current events on this blog, and then I will choose my words carefully so as to state my case clearly while remaining respectful of those who do not agree.  That, of course, is a lot like work, so I usually avoid those topics.

Forced humor: One thread that runs through almost every post here is humor.  I don’t set out to be humorous when I write here, but my sense of humor permeates almost every interaction I have, so it comes through.  My posts are not too different from my personal conversations in that regard.  That said, there are some times and topics that just do not lend themselves to laugh out loud comments, so I either avoid writing about the subject altogether, or give it a straight treatment.  Trying to be funny when something just isn't a funny concept is a recipe for disaster.  A related issue is sarcasm.  I’ll be the first to admit to being a sarcastic wiseass, but that rarely comes across as I would like in my writing, so I have to put the brakes on sarcasm much of the time.

These self-imposed restrictions sometimes get in the way of finding a topic for a blog post, but they help maintain the quality of my posts, so they are not a bad thing.  I’d rather post nothing than post garbage.  I've had some ideas for posts lately, to be sure, but they've often fallen into the “complaining”, “controversy” or “repetition” categories, so I've nixed putting them on here.  

So there you have it: an entire post wherein I wrote about not knowing about what to write.  I've dealt with writer’s block before, and it never lasts, for me or for anyone.   The idea fairy will come for a visit soon enough and Wicked Awesomology will get back to my version of normal.  If she doesn't come soon though, I may have to resort to a slew of crazy cat stories.

"Phased" Out: A Post of Music and Me

I am a pretty consistent person in most aspects of my life.  Routine and structure are comforting to me.  On work days, I always wake up at 6:00, while on non-work days, it’s 7:30.  I have cold cereal for breakfast every day of the week except Sunday mornings, when I get all crazy and make French toast or waffles.  Every morning, it’s two cups of coffee for me, no more, no less.  Whenever I log onto the Internet, the first thing I do is check my e-mail, just like clockwork.  My days for serious writing are Saturday through Wednesday.  I fuel my car at the same service station in town, usually at the same pump, and often on the same day of the week.  Before falling asleep at night, I have to read something, at least for a few minutes, no matter how tired.  I've awakened more than once with drool on my Kindle.

None of these routines are set in stone, of course.  This is not obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I won’t sit behind the wheel and wait for pump #5 at the Shell station to come open if another one is available, for example.  (Well, I won’t wait for long.)  And if I am on a serious roll because the idea fairy has bludgeoned me over the head with inspiration, I will write on a Thursday or Friday.  But still, I have my preferences and try to stick to them.

One area of my life where routine and structure do not apply is in my musical taste.  With music, I go through phases, especially over the past couple of years.

I have been a huge fan of music ever since I can remember.  While I have always gravitated most strongly toward rock and pop, I've dabbled in country, jazz, and even classical to an extent.  Over the years, I've amassed quite a bit of musical knowledge and a decent-sized music collection as well.  Some people I know lament the absence of a physical product in today’s MP3 music files, but if I had to have a CD in the house for all the music I have these days, I’d be forced to live in my car and producers of that Hoarders reality TV show would be knocking at my door.  I collect music in the same way that other people collect Elvis memorabilia or paintings of kittens with big sad eyes, only less creepy. Much less creepy.

Source where you can buy this if you are so inclined. I'd have to cover it at night or whenever I ate if it were in my house.

Having so much music from which to choose and ridiculously easy access to it, I find that I have evolved into a tendency to go through phases, much like young kids often do with superheroes, dinosaurs or TV characters.  You parents who had to endure their toddler’s “Barney phase” know what I am talking about.  Some of you still have that nervous twitch you developed during that period.

The phases are kind of interesting.  I’m sure a psychologist could write a heck of a paper on them after a bit of analysis.  They began about five years ago.  Some might say I went over to the dark side then, when I got into modern country music for much of 2008-2009.  Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban were particular favorites.  Maybe it was a country with a “K” phase?  However, much like Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi, I came back to the good side of the Force (rock music), and spent much of 2010 alternating between Stone Temple Pilots and the Eagles.  2011 was when I went through phases with the Foo Fighters, George Harrison, The Cars, and anything “unplugged” (a.k.a.-acoustic). 

At this time last year, I was musically reliving my twenties with lots of 1990s alternative and grunge, which narrowed itself to almost nothing other than Pearl Jam by spring.  In early summer, I had moved on to Nirvana, and that was followed by a kick for 1980s rock and pop, which is the stuff I listened to the most in my teens and is the bedrock of my music collection.  Fall brought on a mini-obsession with ZZ Top, followed by the Rolling Stones, and right now I cannot get enough of Led Zeppelin.  I wouldn’t be surprised if another Beatles jag was looming on my musical horizon too, since I often develop an intense interest in some aspect of their work every year or two around this time.

Looking at it now, the current trend seems to be one of going back further and further in time.  If the pattern continues, I’ll likely be rocking out to Thomas Edison’s wax cylinder recording of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” by the middle of 2014.

Even after a phase passes, I do not throw the artist on the trash heap.  I still listen to them, just not as intensely.  While Pearl Jam was last spring’s phase, I still click on Vitalogy or Ten from time to time.  Neither do I listen to the object of my current obsession exclusively during a phase, though they do tend to dominate.  In spite of my current Led Zeppelin phase, I just finished listening to an album by Fitz & the Tantrums, a current band specializing in retro-Philly soul style stuff.  (They are really good, by the way.  The link is to their album on Amazon. Highly recommended!)

I've discussed this tendency toward phases in my musical taste with some fellow music lovers of my generation, and they've noticed much the same in themselves.  In our conversations, we've all reached the same general conclusion: Since most of today’s music isn't really directed toward our demographic, we are mining the music of the past in hopes of unearthing some new nuggets that will set us on fire like music did when we were younger and “in the mainstream”.  It is one thing to listen to the Rolling Stones’ greatest hits over the years, but quite another to explore the contents of an entire album from earlier in their career that you've never heard, as I did with Let It Bleed last month.

On a wider scale, it gives those of us who are moving into middle age the hope that, while maybe there is nothing (or precious little) that is new under the sun these days, there are plenty of things, in music and in life, that have been around a while but that we just haven’t discovered yet.