Confession: when I’m happy and/or simply content, I have jack-ass shit to write about.
The boy is being precious. I had a lovely anniversary weekend. Work is going swimmingly. I have absolutely nothing to complain about…except the regular stuff everyone has to complain about. And how interesting is that?!
Oh! I’m super tired because I had an awesome time going out for dinner, tailgating, and watching the Giants get destroyed at AT&T park this weekend! I’m sure you all feel really bad for me.
Oh! My kid is obsessed with watching this one terrible Hulk cartoon on Netflix. Yeah, let’s write a blog about that.
Oh! I’m getting an epidural steroid shot on Wednesday. I’m a little nervous! That’s about all I can say on that topic.
This is the danger of running a personal blog. Sometimes you just don’t have a whole lot interesting going on, but it’s important to update your page with something, anything, so people don’t forget about you. And oh how quickly they forget. On the Internet, you’re only as good as your last post. And even if your last post went viral, your next post better not be a stinker, otherwise people are moving on.
But here I am. Writing away. And I got nothing.
There’s only one other time you might find me tongue-tied on this here blog, and that’s when there’s stuff going on that crosses my hey, this will be on the Internet forever so maybe I don’t want to write about it boundary. And since I’ve written about miscarriage, morbid fantasies, the death of my cousin, and awkward office sex talk, you know it’s pretty juicy if I’m not sharing it here. Sometimes it’s just not my secret to tell. Other times it is mine, but it’s in my or my family’s best interest to keep it to myself.
So what do you do when you’re either content or carrying around a secret you can’t share? You sit back and let the other people around you do the talking. You listen. You smile. You send up a little thanks to the universe for easing up on you for a bit. And you hold your breath because Lord knows the next big thing might be just around the corner.
…and if all else fails, I’m sure that epidural shot will yield SOME drama worth writing about! You all know my luck with doctors. If this shot actually helps with my pain, it will be a goddamned miracle. Which means I may have to start posting Italian recipes on this blog or some shit.
The Olive Gal
green of skin, black of heart
I had an internal debate about how to take on the responsibility of a blog for the very reason you wrote this post! But I knew I needed to for my career. It is a challenge sometimes, thinking of topics.
I’m working on a project about my current career/$ worries, & I plan on using it as a humorous diary of sorts. I originally wanted to make it branch off of my blog, but I don’t know how to do it (like, how do Blogspot “pages” work?), or do I publish it as an e-Book? I know this is ultimately my decision that doesn’t have to be made right away, but do you have any advice?
Hey Shannon! I just stumbled upon your comment. (Sorry, my blog doesn’t have the best comment notification system…gotta work on that!)
My only advice to you is to think about the end result—what do you want from this project? Is your goal to provide advice, to create a community, to simply have an outlet? Publishing an e-book will give you more freedom to have “off” days, but it’s also a much more involved process than publishing on your blog. And then once you do publish the book, you need to do more to get it out there.
If you’re thinking about keeping it on your blog, you can create a category about career, or you can dedicate certain days to discussing the topic—make it sort of a running column. But if it seems like it doesn’t fit with the other topics on your blog, you also might consider starting an entirely separate one!
Best of luck with the project!