Tag Archives: writing

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An Announcement

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I’ve written over 100 posts. That’s quite a few. They range quite a few topics. Some have been more popular than others. Some have been picked up by other sites. I have more subscribers than I could have ever imagined three months ago. My blog has been viewed around 4000 times in the past four months.

There has been dialogue. Sometimes people disagree. Sometimes people agree. Sometimes people encourage. It’s been really positive.

For the past four months, I have posted nearly every day. That’s pretty crazy. I still don’t fully understand how I managed to do that. With your support and patience, mostly.

But here’s a confession. I want to be a writer. I legitimately want to have a book someday or be an essayist or something like that.

This blog has gained much momentum. But I also recognize that I am not doing anything crazy here. I’m making some observations and trying to write about them honestly. Book deals don’t magically fall out of the sky for that sort of thing. Other, more popular blogs, do it better than me or have been doing it longer.

And so here’s the announcement: I’m going to try my hand at submitting to other blogs. Other popular blogs. What that means for this blog is that I will generate new content Sunday through Thursday, post an oldie but a goodie on Friday, and then take Saturday off. That gives me Friday and Saturday to work on posts for other sites.

Here’s what I think you should do. On Friday and Saturday, I think you should work on making your dreams come true, too. Because that would be cool.

If you want to keep up to date on what I am doing on the internet (and want to know when and where I am guest-blogging), you can follow me on Twitter! Thanks for coming on this journey with me.

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Sometimes You Need to Write a Cheery Letter to Yourself

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Dear Spence,

Some days you aren’t going to feel like writing.
It’s not because you are sad or mad
Or frustrated or too happy or too glad
It’s because some days you just don’t feel like writing.

But those are the days when you need to write the most
Otherwise words will follow you around
And settle into the cracks of your mind like ghosts
And if you don’t let them out, they’ll threaten their host
Which is you on the days you don’t feel like writing.

And so even if those words need to be arranged
Into crappy poetic lines of a twelve-year-old boy, deranged
Get them out, put them down because tomorrow you will be changed
Some days you won’t feel like writing.
But tomorrow you will.

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The Abolition of the Daily Question

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For those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning, you will know that some time ago I instituted the practice of asking a question at the end of most of my posts. This practice was something that I picked up from other successful bloggers in an attempt to generate conversation. I want you, my readers, to talk to me.

Some time ago (but not as “ago” as when I started asking questions; that wouldn’t make chronological sense), a couple of you started complaining about the questions. You said they were tacky and unwarranted and took away from my writing. I assured you that no one was judging my writing on the questions.

Last night, when I was thinking about my blog (I think about it far too often), I decided that my assurances didn’t get to the point. I started thinking about my favorite posts, the ones of which I’m most proud. Very few of them have questions at the end.

If I am not proud of a piece, how can I ask you to read it? If I don’t like how a piece feels, how can I expect others to like it?

I know it seems like I should have come to this kind of conclusion weeks ago since I’ve been writing a post every day. But I didn’t. I came to it last night. Sometimes, I’m a slow learner.

I know everyone says that you can’t live for other people. And I know that roughly six billion people have said the same thing. But no one ever says why. The reason why you can’t live for other people is because when you do, the passion leaves, the art is gone, and the magic disappears.

Abolish more questions.

[P.S. I want to make it very clear that the abolition of questions means that I respect my readers enough that I think them confident enough to comment when they have something to say. I still want to hear what you have to say. Just because my posts no longer end in a question mark doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear your stories.]