I
don’t watch a lot of TV anymore. I used to. I can still remember some of the plots from my
favorite shows.
The Captain and crew are faced with
a hostile enemy, and the captain defeats them singlehanded… in a fist-fight.
The flippant army surgeon’s attitude
gets him in severe trouble with superiors, and his miraculous medical skills
get him right back out.
Or how about this one:
They almost get off the island this time, but one knuckleheaded cast
member botches it.
Even the best writers might run out of something to say once in a
while and have to resort to a tired but true formula to appease the network
execs, sponsors, and hopefully the fans if possible.
I am not the best
writer, I am an amateur writer. And I don’t have execs or sponsors either. I
have regular readers, but I am fans them.
But I do, once in a
while, run out of things to say for this weekly blog. When that happens, I
might consult my notebook of ideas that I carry with me most days. I also might
scrape around the barrel of memories with a spatula and see if I can find
anything to share my musings over.
I started Roadwalker blog almost 3 years ago. The
first few weeks I wrote almost every day. I wrote about myself, memories that
were on my mind and generally tried to paint a picture of who I was. I finally
fell into a weekly schedule. But my topics were still Navel Gazing.
It wasn’t
until about 9 months of blogging that Prajna encouraged me to make my blog more
topical. She told me to write about what God was doing in my life at that time.
So I started trying to write about what I was thinking about that week. That is
when I think I found the voice of my blog. That’s when I started to really like
what I wrote most of the time.
But I often
see the same formula in a lot of my blog posts. I was messed up, then praise the Lord, I started to get
better. I’m not there yet, but I’m on the mend and on my way and I hope
everyone is encouraged by this.
Nice, but
growing old. I feel like my blog is getting a little stale. And I wouldn’t be
just filling up this entry to reflect on this without trying to make some sense
of it.
I think my
life lately has been a little stale. Now, don’t anyone get me wrong, my life
has not been bad or even boring. I’ve been busy at work, read and listened to
some good books, got a new puppy and been amazed at my second Celebrate
Recovery step study.
But
something is still lacking I think. I haven’t stepped out much or taken a lot
of risk. The biggest thing I did lately was fit an extraordinary number of
tables and chairs into an assembly room at church. I even blogged about it.
But if my
blog is getting stale then maybe I need some new inspiration. And at the mere
thought of that, I want to go take a nap. Getting inspired might mean trying
something new or getting out and meeting people. I don’t know if my writing is
worth me going out on a limb like that.
For now, I
want to start writing a new story. I have an opening of a story idea that I
want to start this week. I don’t know where the story will go and just want to
write the opening scenes that I’ve imagined and see if anything comes after. That’s
a start, right?
I don’t
know how much that will help my weekly blog. I remind myself that this blog is
a writing exercise. It compels me to write at least once a week, and it gives me
something to think about over the days. I try to look for things to write about
all week. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes not. Starting a new story might
sharpen my writing skills, but I don’t know if it will aid in inspiration.
I should
get out more, not just grocery shopping. If my truck worked I could go for a
road trip. Is it wrong to blame a broken rear-end for a stale blog?
Maybe it
is. One might think that a father of five would never lack for inspiration.
Maybe I just need to open my eyes more. But something tells me that all I
really need to broaden my horizons and be more inspired is get my rear in gear.