I need your help, my friends.
I have gone past 1500 posts.
Now, that is not in itself a cause for celebration, it’s simply a testament to the fact I can’t seem to shut the hell up. I’ve got an opinion on EVERYTHING. I ain’t bashful about sharing it, either.
On a side note, did you know Lewis Black is on Twitter @thelewisblack ? Not sure why that suddenly occured to me.
I’ve gone past 1500 posts.
That may seem cool, until you try to find something buried in that mess.
I tried to find one particular post in my archives the other day, and I came to a stunning realization.
I can’t find SHIT.
I even have a search function on my blog. Nope, really can’t find shit.
Now, you can’t help me find what I was looking for, I forgot what the heck it was already.
There is something you COULD do that I would be truly grateful for. Please?
You could let me know in the comments to this post what posts I may have written over the years that stand out to you as ones that would be worth having links to on the sidebar.
If the answer is none, then that’s fine with me. 🙂
I’m not looking to fulfill any particular criteria. It’s enough to me that, if I wrote something that for whatever reason stuck with you and you think would be a good one to have linked on the sidebar, that you let me know.
If I actually get some suggestions, I’m going to add a section on the sidebar for reader recommendations, and it will bring some stuff back to life from a dead and gone archive.
I’m not joking, by the way. If you think nothing I’ve written deserves to be on the sidebar of the blog, that’s cool. Hey, if you think it’s all fishwrap… there is absolutely NOTHING wrong in my mind with aspiring to write words that last for a single day before fading away into the past.
There are a few things driving this today, besides my not being able to find shit in my archives, that is.
The first thing is, every once in a while I get the thought that maybe I should have links to some of the stuff in my archives on the sidebar for new readers to check out. I do not, in any way, expect anyone to read through 1500 freaking posts. With the size of my bearwalls? Really?
Not a chance.
But buried in that mess there might be posts people enjoyed, and think new readers would enjoy too. Or at least would give people fair warning over the kind of crap I’m known for spewing.
I do have some posts on the sidebar. I’ve tried to keep the Storytime posts I like doing and the Tales from the Truckstop, and Druid Tanking posts from back when what I thought was, for a brief millisecond, relevant. A wonderful reader also recently asked me to add the Alex the Bunnyslayer posts there, and if someone asks you to do that, how the hell can you resist?
Those posts on the sidebar already, some of those are very old, and yet they still seem recent and fresh to me. I think part of that is because they are on the sidebar, where I am reminded of them and the good times we had writing and talking about them. If you think I don’t like to remember good times I’ve shared with you, you’re nucking futs.
The thing is, I’m not capable of judging what someone might think was worth linking to or not. For this kind of thing, it doesn’t matter what I thought about it, what matters is your opinion.
There is yet another reason for this, too.
If my pagehit post caused some people to wince in irritation at my bragging and to liken me to being the kind of person that would tell a crowd of people how many conquests I’ve had, then the whole concept of my pandering to my massive ego by begging readers for suggestions on what posts of mine were most awesome ought to cause ’em to blow a fucking gasket.
Cherish that visual with me for a moment. The beginning of reading the post, the dawning realization of just what it was I was asking for, the gradual darkening of the cheeks as blood pressure soars, the sudden pop…
Nirvana.
I kid, I kid. I do that. It’s all in good fun.
There is an even further point to all this.
If you are a blog writer, or any kind of writer at all, and you sometimes feel discouraged at not finding an audience or recognition, take a good, long look at me for a moment.
I’m not a great writer, I’m probably not even a good writer. But I do put myself into my writing, and I keep writing. I’m the energizer bear of blogging, I keep writing and writing and writing. It may suck, people may want me to shut the hell up, but here I am.
If I’m not actively writing, I’m thinking about writing, thinking about story structure, thinking about characters and concepts and shit, and I want to write it all down.
It’s not about pagehits. It’s not about recognition. It’s about writing for the love of writing. If you’re doing it for a reward other than doing what you love, then it’s a means to get you something else you want, and you’re not likely to keep going unless you get that thing that is your true goal.
I was writing long before there was an internet, and I sucked then, too. I’ve got notebooks full of story ideas, role playing game scenarios, poetry, character backgrounds, you name it. I’ll be the first to say, none of it is any good.
Every few years I come across one of those notebooks, flip through one, and think, “Holy shit, I was a complete IDIOT. This is crap! Oh my god, I can’t believe how immature my worldview was, how lacking my understanding of history, the inter-connectedness of events, how shit works together, geopolitical views and just wow what a bloody idiot I was.”
Then a few years pass, I pick something up, and read what I’d written just a few years prior, and think the same damn thing.
Every year I look back on the person I was a year before and think, “Wow, what an ignorant idiot.”
The lesson here is… I know, based on past experience, not think but KNOW, that I am an idiot NOW. In five years, I will look back on the person I am today and truthfully think, “Wow, what an idiot I was.”
That doesn’t stop me from writing. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. I keep writing. I wrote in notebooks, I write here, and who knows where I’ll be a decade from now. Dead in a ditch, victim of the zombie apocalypse everyone tried to warn me of, or writing something completely different on a new venue I can’t imagine? No idea.
If you love writing, sharing your ideas, playing with words and cleansing yourself of the ideas in your skull that threaten to drive you nuts unless you get them out where you can twist them around to get a better look at them… DO IT.
1500 posts don’t all happen at once. They happen because you wrote something today, and tomorrow, and every other time you were fired with enthusiasm to get the shit out of your head someplace where you could see it, and you did it by typing or scribbling or scrawling.
Honestly. Look at this place. Look at it, and be sure of one thing.
You can do better.
So do it. Be yourself, let your love for writing explode on the screen, and if you are honest with yourself and what you’re saying, it may take time, but people WILL find you, they WILL link to you, and you WILL be part of the community whether you want to be or not.
For every writer pouring their heart out, there are people who will find those words resonate within them. It may take time, but it will happen.
But start with the writing.
