I published a blog post yesterday where, in the first two paragraphs, I talk about how everything I was writing that morning was “crap.” I’d start a piece, then stop writing. Then start another. Crap all around. Boundless crap in every direction. Every last word. That’s how it felt.
You may know the crap I speak of. The crap you, yourself, write, and keep away from the world. Well, I’d like to read it. I want to read all of your crap or at least a portion of it. Don’t hand me just the polished turds and don’t flush the rest of the crap down the toilet. Publish at least some of what you are hesitating to share on your blog.
Flowers grow from crap, you know.
Weirdly, it’s this type of writing I’m more drawn to in blogging. There’s a place for the refined essay. I like reading those. But I’m also drawn to the breakaway fragments when I read blogs. The “little scraps of thought,” as Mike Grindle puts it.
With all this talk of crap, what I’m talking about isn’t that at all in the end. What I’d like to see more of on blogs is the unpolished pieces and the vignettes from your day. The 1-2 paragraph posts like I read on the strandlines blog. What did you notice when you took a walk today? Write about a weird insect. Write about the song you find yourself listening to on loop. What’s it about that song that is putting you in a trance?
No matter what it is, hesitate less and blog more. Unless you’re ranting about the state of American politics, that is. In that case, hesitate more and blog less. I repeat: hesitate more and blog less. We all need less of that. I know you think it’s important. Trust me: I have to keep my own self from ranting and raving about it. But it’s for the better because every one of us is inundated with the insanity at every turn on the digital universe.
What I can’t get on every corner of the web is 250 words about an insect that looks like the aliens, Kang and Kodos, from The Simpsons cartoon that dropped down from an oak tree while I was eating pizza at the picnic table in my backyard.
True story.
Happened to me during the pandemic. It’s called a Monkey Slug, or at least that’s what someone contacted me and told me it was. Who am I to disagree? Tell me that doesn’t look like Kang and Kodos? I think this terrifying looking thing got bad directions from his GPS and landed in Charlottesville instead of Springfield.
My point is, if that’s getting lost in the sauce here, is it’s those fragments that many people find interesting or relatable or that makes them feel less alone in the world. I’m not one to shout more! more! more! often, but in this case, yes, a touch more of that, please.
More old school blogging. It probably isn’t the crap you think it is.
P.S. Here’s the blog post I referenced in the opening paragraph: “My Brain Isn’t Working.”
