Asides

A funny thing that happened

Ha-ha, I lied, this wasn’t funny at all. After I wrote “Digging Ditches…” about my brother’s suicide (and received a great response, which felt good), I suddenly had a goddamned hard time writing again. I have another post in draft about Richard Parker (who pled guilty to murder earlier this summer) but it has been hard to finish. I think this is because it treads across similar territory. And way back in 2004, after I’d already been blogging for 4 years, I started a blog about crime stories in the news in part because I realized I fucking hated writing about myself and my life. I tend to save all that shit for solipsistic conversations with friends, my wife and one of 2-3 different pretentious-ass Moleskine notebooks I have laying about any given time.

I have refused to admit to writer’s block since I’ve had a Twitter account, because even when I couldn’t eke out a paragraph even for a paying gig, I could still tweet. But that’s a low bar, to be honest. My Twitter feed (from my @SteveHuff account) will always be kind of ragged and discursive, because I’m not angling for a comedy writing or social media editing job, I’m experimenting, which is easily done 140 characters at a time.

All of this is to say I feel self-conscious about not updating this blog more often, yet I’ve actually kept up with it better than any personal site I’ve created in the last 5 years or so. I think I will double down on that and pay WordPress whatever to add a unique URL. We’ll see if that’ll make me feel even more obligated to make a practice of this.

Because I do feel blogging, something many writers have mixed feelings about, is a valid form of writing or if nothing else, a valid way to stay in practice as a writer. So. Stay tuned, I guess.

LOL blogging and best intentions

Past experience–going back 10 years, in fact–should have taught me: I won’t keep this kind of thing up if I bore myself.

While fitness pursuits are interesting to me, writing about them in detail often is not. That is, I have thoughts I could organize about some of my favorite stuff, like running and kettlebells, and chances are I will, as I go along. But I’m happier if I save simple recording of workouts–especially repeats, and I frequently repeat them–to personal notebooks in which I’ve been recording them since the middle of last year.

Past experience also taught me that it’s rare I have something overtly personal or essay-like to talk about. That’s a goal I have–to consciously (as in not just write free-form) put together some organized, more or less personal writing here. I won’t label it humor, either, because I have no idea when something will turn out funny or not.

What I am going to continue is blogging, though. Just about whatever’s got me curious or interested on a given day, which could be a huge variety of things, some of them weird. That’d fit the name I gave this site better anyway.