Tag: writing

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manic…monday?

I’ve had a manic writing period these past 2 weeks. It’s been pretty unusual to say the least. Ordinarily my avoidance behaviors lead me in other directions, away from writing. I guess my word tank finally filled up. I’m not going to try to figure it out, I’m just going to ride this wave until it washes ashore — no doubt leaving me in the sand covered in seaweed and sand lice. I’ll live with that when the moment comes. Until then, I feel like the Silver Surfer.

It does kind of wreak havoc with my personality, though. I wouldn’t call it a depression because it doesn’t make me sad — more like subdued. It just ZAPS my energy. Geez. Why couldn’t this be easy?

I once saw an interview with Barbara Cartland, the prolific writer of hundreds of romance novels — the ones with Fabio on the cover! The interview was in her boudoir and she was draped across a chaise lounge. For real! She admitted to writing the same story over and over, selecting the characters and settings from rolodexes of possibilities. I admire her chutzpah for admitting as much. Hilarious, if you ask me. I mean, this feisty old broad is a far cry from the stereotype of the  long-suffering writer.

I also happened to catch an interview with Jackie Collins, another prolific writer — and interesting character. When I first saw her talking about her office and her work ethic, I had to chuckle a little. She writes from a large table in a well-lit room, in a scrapbook-like notebook where she hand-writes her manuscript.

Teehee. Hand-writes her manuscript. Hand writes. Get it? Manu-script.

I never thought I’d have something in common with Jackie Collins. It turns out that some of my best writing happens, not on my fancy schmancy computer, but on notebook paper using a #2 pencil. I can’t even claim to use a fancy pen.

There’s just something about hearing the scratch of the lead on paper.

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my nanowrimo widget doesn’t update well

Alas, one must be patient until the web traffic slows down some. If you’re new to the blog, you can read my work in progress in the NaNoWriMo tab. I’ve already taken down the first day’s entry, and will replace day 2 this afternoon, so if you’re interested in following my progress, check in daily!

Meanwhile, my word count is 4003 –so I better get back to work.

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“Why I Moved” by Bego

Wency, of Slaho fame, asked me the following question:

Hey Bego, any reason why you decided to move? Just curious, you know?

Ok, Wency, here’s my answer: Because.

There’s more, of course, but the overwhelming reason is because I wanted to do it. When I started blogging a few years ago, I had already been reading several forums and blogs and had seen a lot of nice clean blogs and an equal share of really messy, really confusing blogs that had so many widgets and stuff that it was distracting. And then when I starting reading those blogs from Bloglines, the reader took out all that stuff and gave me the kind of clean lines I appreciated. Anyway, from a purely aesthetic and streamlined point of view, I liked the stuff that let me find the content easier.

When I finally decided to take the plunge and start my own blog, I knew my audience was family and friends–I just wanted a place to post my random thoughts and observations, and also keep my parents and siblings caught up on stuff in my life. It became a forum for posting the silly pictures of stuff going on in my life, and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, mostly so that my parents could use it without having to register for things like MySpace or Facebook.

I tried out a few blogs, such as Xanga and LiveJournal, but they were loaded with all the stuff that I wanted to avoid. Blogger seemed to have the easiest format, not only for the reader, but for me, too. I settled on the design that I liked the most out of what was available at the time, almost on a whim. I liked it well enough and it served my needs.

I was doing some other stuff on blogs at the time. Like you, I was posting at Ink ‘n Doodles, and in fact, the Friday Ruminations eventually turned into my blog–something that agitated Rob a little (sorry dude, but all this is your fault to begin with!) because I pretty much disappeared from posting over there. But hey, it gave me the courage to take the dive. For too long I wrote and jammed it under my bed instead of sharing it. I was also writing on a group blog at Rosary Army, where I eventually started posting on Mondays under the title of Monday Musings. That has grown into a regular feature at Rosary Army, along with some other really good bloggers like Mickey Addison, Fr. Bill Kessler, Greg Willits, and lately, a podcast called Catholic Magazine that features Mickey, me, and Fr. Jay Finelli, the iPadre (check out his podcast, too!). I also help write for That Catholic Show, which, if I say so myself, is a great fun way to look at Catholicism in 5-mute bursts of catechesis.

So, it turns out that I’m not just writing on my blog, but I’m scattered in a bunch of different places, and while the readership of this blog is still family and close friends, I’ve also added some very cool and interesting people who drop in every once in a while, either out of curiosity or because I’ve linked to here for something that I think they would like.

In writing for those other endeavors, I’ve been exposed to different bloghosts, and found that WordPress has a cleaner design–exactly what I was looking for! The bottom line is this: if I had known then what I know now, I would have built my blog like this three years ago. But I didn’t.

It’s kind of like buying a house. Unless you are one of those freaky people who knows exactly what to get, and has the foresight and money to get it on the first go round, you end up buying the house you can, and learn from that experience so you can get a bigger and better house the next time.

That’s it. I moved because I wanted to and I could. And I was tired of green.

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