Beginning Blogger's Blues

I love blogging, reading blogs, blog-surfing... I enjoy being invited into people's brains and hearing their memories, their rants, their passions and their pet peeves. Posting to my own blog is a somewhat hit and miss proposition. I seek to develop the daily habit of posting so that I am writing all the time. I have such a burning desire to write (like everyone else in the blogiverse) but, even more, I desire to be read. I would like for people to wander onto my site and say "YES, that's exactly what I think, but I never could have articulated it so well!" or "Wow--that's why people think that way." or "Has she been reading my mind?" And this desire to be profound, to touch a nerve, to speak truth sometimes prevents me from writing at all.

I'm also frustrated because some of the simple technical things I would like to do--like posting pictures, adding blogrolls, dressing up the format--all seem so time consuming to learn. Meanwhile, I have children to feed, laundry to put away, meals to cook, a ministry to lead, kids to educate at home, grocery shopping to do, a husband I long to engage in adult conversation, missionaries to supervise, bible studies to prepare, networking to do, and I am always forgetting something that I should have done, and I never call my mother enough, and sometimes important things fall through the cracks while mundane things take over. I don't intend to sound whiny--I truly love my life! I just want to be sure I am wisely spending my time and growing spiritually and creatively at the same time. Teach me to number my days aright, Lord, that I might gain a heart of wisdom...

I am reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird which is a great primer on writing. It's written in her own raw style and it's very inspiring. She encourages writers to write about childhood memories, which is what I've been going over in my own mind quite often. My son is always asking me, "Tell me the story about when you were little..." and I rack my brain for something to entertain my little one. It doesn't matter what the story is, however, he always loves it. Then he tells me the same story imaginatively as if it had happened to him and he changes it to suit his whims. I wish I were as easily amused.

MicahGirl