We had our first real winter storm today. It was a typical winter storm for us, the kind we get 2-3 times a year: half a foot of snow coming down sideways. (Hmmm, is it coming down if it's blowing sideways?) Of course, there are the ones that are considerably worse, which we only get once a year, or maybe twice.
And although I never like it when this happens in November, it's not like it's the first time we've had one this early. The worst experience I had during the three years I drove back and forth to Missoula for grad school was in November.
We lived through this one. A friend ended up in a ditch, I saw three fender benders, and traffic was a bear, but the house is warm and we didn't lose power, so it's all good. And the boys are thrilled because skiing.
Every time I've done this month of blog posting daily, I've hit a point where I wonder why the hell I do this. Not the blog posting month-- I've been wondering why the hell I'm doing that since the first day-- but why do I keep a blog at all? It's an enormous time sink. It is more often demoralizing than rewarding. But I can't seem to stop. As most of you know, I've tried several times.
Each post takes a couple of hours. That's the reason I usually only post twice a week. I'm never sure if what I'm writing is going to be of any possible interest to anybody else. I never know what to write about. Even when I sit down feeling inspired, I rarely end up thinking, wow, that is a good post.
Oddly, the only ones I immediately like are the rants--the ones where I'm really pissed and sit down and pound it out. The ones I write while mad usually get published pretty much as they are with very little editing. I guess I do my best writing angry. My not-angry ones get edited and edited and edited, and often even then I'm not happy with them. Eventually it's just time to quit working on them.
I only have five more days--whoa, how did this month fly by so fast?-- so I'm not going to quit. But as you can tell, you're getting more and more short ones that are hardly worth the time. At this point, I'm posting every day because I said I would rather than because I've got something to say.
But oddly, in spite of everything, my number of monthly pageviews is already more than triple my usual. I guess that makes sense since there are about triple the number of posts I usually have! Regardless-- thanks for stopping by.
I read recently that we need to just write for ourselves. It's a compulsion many of us are simply born with. So, it's better to just not fight it.
ReplyDeleteMy thought is, when someone I care about takes the time to write, I'm already intrigued because they are important to me. Even if it's a topic I may not comment on, it's valuable because it came from you. And you matter.