It's not over til it's over

I got an email today from our fearless NaBloPoMo leader (the lovely and talented Eden Kennedy, whom I would like to thank at this time for bothering with this whole thing) cheering me on, and reminding me that there are only a few short days left in the whole blogging every day event. I have to say that it's gone by pretty fast. Yeah, there have been a few days I didn't want to bother, or almost forgot, or wrote something that bored somebody, but I do that anyway. At least those last two items. And I had a lot of big ideas I had for Really Interesting Posts on Really Fascinating Topics, but it's increasingly unlikely that I will get around to writing them, or at least posting them, this month.

I do think it's a good idea to try writing something every day, even if it's not for publication or even for blogging. Because it's just not the end of the world if you write something boring, or even if you write it badly. My theory about writing, and about all creative work, is that at least 90% of your output is going to be lousy, so you might as well get to work. You don't have to publish all of it. And you can always re-write it later.

Even when I'm not blogging, I write something, somewhere, almost every day. Sometimes it's just a note to myself, or an annotated grocery list, or a letter to someone that I never ever send. Never even intend to send. I shred a lot of what I write; I have certainly burned a fair amount of it. Sometimes I open up a new file on the computer, write my little heart out, and then when I close the file and it asks me do I want to save the file, I click "no" and close the file and it goes away.

It's not that I'm so critical that I think that what I write is terrible and has to go away, it's more that it has served its purpose, for the moment. And it's never really gone of course, just like the shredded paper is never gone, nor the burned journals. It's all still here in my head.

Plus, I also sometimes think of poor dear Franz Kafka, on his deathbed, telling his friend Max Brod to burn his notebooks, and what does the bastard do? He published them.

But on the other hand, there are also piles of notebooks I have that contain, taped to the pages, sonnets written on the back of envelopes, essays written on the backs of 'while you were out' notes, and even love letters scrawled on the 'personal directory and notes' pages torn out of the back of the yellow pages. Stuff that, if it's good, I've transcribed or revised elsewhere, but I've felt moved to preserve the moment in which I wrote it. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but I do have a sentimental side, y'know.

Blogging is different (for me, anyway) than journaling. And rocket surgeons like myself do write things for publication now and again, so I've certainly been there and done that. But I put stuff out here and it's, well, out here. Wherever "here" is. Sure, I can alter and delete posts, but there are archives somewhere. And anybody can read them, any old time. Sometimes I am a little unnerved when I remember that this blog has an actual audience that includes people I do not know. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted when you stop by, and when you comment & alla that.

But I digress. All I'm saying is that writing something every day, for any reason, is a good idea. Try it sometime. And, after today, I am obliged to putting in only four more days of it, if I want to win the prize. Who knows what I'll do next month. But soon, sometime in January if I recall correctly, it will be the start of my fourth year on this little backroad in blogtopia [Jan. 30, 2005, was the first post on this blog - ed.].

Thanks for stopping by, yall.