Thought Picnic: I write to please myself

“Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: write to please yourself.” Harlan Ellison.

And I have tried

I have probably failed at the first three hurdles, but always striven to do the fourth. That I know because I write mostly in my own space, where I have control and where no one can dictate, amend or edit what I have written.

My blog is my own refuge, the castle of my expressed mind in writing, crenelated with moats and drawbridges that makes reading but commentary difficult.

Commentary is difficult not because people cannot comment, but I am quite exactly about the quality, tone and context of comments left on my blog. I want to be engaged and engaged in a way that we might agree or disagree without descending to the point of being disagreeable.

I learnt to do this

I write to please myself because I am under no deadline to deliver nor am I under obligation to submit work for any remuneration. The views and opinions are mine and mine alone, sometimes borne of introspection or derived from things that have inspired me.

I learnt to love writing much later in my life, I never liked writing in primary school and I only entered one writing competition in secondary school where I claimed second prize. I helped co-found a press club but soon got bored with the idea and moved on to other things.

Looking at this blog in its twelfth year, it is probably the only thing I have consistently done for this length of time apart from breathing, sleeping and living. I sometimes feel I have left it like a plant, a weed to grow wild, an empty house at risk of going derelict and sense of unhappiness appears at time when I note I have not fed the blog with new material.

Writer’s block

It is not like there is nothing to write about, the mind is always in churn, the ideas are always in thought, it is just the drive and the inspiration that put words in an order to make a worthwhile blog that appears to desert me for hours, sometimes for days and it has happened for weeks too.

For weeks, it is usually the case of my having conceived something but decided the time is not yet ripe for the piece to be written. I have had that occasion where waiting for some time allows for another event or idea to overtake things and a better blog ensues. Yet, after over 2,500 blogs I find it strange that none are left unfinished in draft, ready to be revisited – I seem to write for the moment rather than for the future.

Writing for my pleasure

I love this stuff and I am still trying to master it, if it is ever intelligent, that will have been a great attempt on my part, if it is witty, I might have excelled myself, if it is wise, I will wonder what has overcome me, but for my pleasure, I am always myself.

Daring as much as I can dare and concealing enough to maintain a sense of mystery even with my predictability, I hope I can still spring a surprise and that is how this blog began, seeded by the quote at the beginning and finding pleasure in writing this with a smile.