Neglected blogs and self-perpetuated writing blocks

The internet is a strange place populated by online cliques, bad information repeated ad nauseum, and unavoidable advertising. When I began this blog I did so with the intent of sharing useful information I had teased out of the nonsense, without all the catch phrases and news items blatantly "shared" between the mediums of social networking and television. One topic in particular that has held my interest for years has been the link between resistance and creativity; nothing is more despised by one who creates for a living more than inertia. It's also one of the most common problems as well.

Oh the irony. I found myself making lists in my sketchbooks of topics I'd like to tackle, where they would go and how I would go about explaining them without my dark humor getting in the way of the 'voice' of my blog. Nothing is more frustrating to me than logging on to a social networking site and finding comments from people who sound like they're feeling sorry for me when I actually find something amusing or disturbingly ignorant. Another bothersome sibling of this sort of retort is one in which someone is trying to give me kind, but unwanted, advice.

Between this kind of gesture and the very good possibility that I could be misunderstood I found myself avoiding writing on here all together. I wanted to learn more about blogging and how to lay out text in a way that it would be read easily, if I should avoid putting links within my text or add them at the end, if I should avoid using run-on sentences such as this one in order to keep the readers interest. What should I write about? Who will read it? Why is my vocabulary and ability to articulate different from one day to the next? What if no one reads this? What if I end up sounding like a pretentious hipster asshole? What if I am a pretentious hipster asshole? What if all the pretentious hipster assholes think I'm a neophyte pseudo-intellectual? And worse, what if I am a neophyte pseudo-intellectual?

Just like any other kind of creative work, writing is something that can come to a screeching halt when perfectionism enters the picture. Perfection has no place in art. Nor does it have any place in the real world. Despite everything our society and education has trained us to believe, sometimes the only thing you really need is the ability to keep going and the capacity for authenticity. Not to say that technical skill and the drive towards mastery has nothing to do with it, it's actually a very important part of the equation. But when the focus turns to something outside of using your work to communicate something you feel deeply the work becomes sterile, predictable and and of no consequence to anyone who matters.

Another obstacle I devised was considering the ethics of communication. There's no point in catering to pluralistic ignorance. Everyone is seeking to know that other's feel the same way. I'm not necessarily talking sob story the-world-is-big-and-scary-and-I-feel-alone-when-I'm-with-people feelings. We all get that. We're caught within our own reality, our own perspective, and we can never see through another persons eyes. We can empathize, we can feel the same emotions and share similar beliefs but we can never experience another person's reality. That's why it's so important to be authentic and avoid regurgitating information without personal insight and well researched facts.

My biggest concern was this giant goal I decided to set for myself of writing things that were meaningful and of use to people. I know what I find interesting and what information I find to be useful to myself but dammit I have a responsibility to my readers! Actually, no, no I don't. I could be like 80% of the blogs out there and no one would care. All I really want to do is write about the topics I find interesting and maybe other people will too. But I found other things to do and when did have the time, the right subject, and the motivation to write, I avoided it like the plague. Sometimes, you just have to take the pressure off yourself and just do what you do. And in a soon to be published post (no really, I will write it soon) I will divulge some really interesting info about creativity, inertia, procrastination and the creative process. Obviously these aren't end-all solutions that will permanently fix the problem, but little tools and techniques to use when you've really had enough with setting aside something and you're actually ready to go at it. Until then, I'd be interested in hearing if any of you have issues with writing, creativity or getting around to projects and if so, what methods do you use when you're ready to tackle them?