The Blog That Never Was

Writing’s a funny old business, really. Take this here bloggy thing. Sometimes a little spark of an idea or a sentence can kick off a whole post. The fingers clack away at the keyboard and it flows from beginning to end (relatively) easily.* At other times, though, I’ll start off and meander some way along before realising that what I’m trying to articulate is formless, aimless and not really going anywhere. At other other times, I’ll get distracted and move on to something else and the thread is either lost or just no longer seems as compelling as it was when the writing started. In a way, this is true for everything I try and write, not just this here blog thing.

There’s no real rhyme or reason to it, either. It’s not as if any one premise is particularly stronger then the other. Let’s face it, this whole blog is largely composed of the flimsiest of premises at the best of times (and definitely at the worst of times) so it’s not as if there’s a level of depth and nuance needed for the post to flourish. I guess that sometimes, my mind just doesn’t want to fully cooperate.

I’ll give you an example (which is basically my way of turning an abortive half-assed blog entry into a “fascinating insight into the mind of the writer” - yes, a statement that is by turns presumptive, arrogant and pretentious) . Here’s what today’s blog was starting out as:-

“Grumpy Middle-Aged Man

I can feel it happening. Like a very slow motion version of bookish Bill Bixby turning into green, muscle-bound Lou Ferrigno (only without the muscles)**, a transformation is underway. I’ve always been a relatively mild-mannered type with a fair-sized curmudgeonly/grumpy streak. Someone who, for the most part, doesn’t get too worked up about things and is willing to let things lie. That’s been shifting over the last few years though. My tolerance levels are lowering. 

I have bugbears now. Things that actively wind me up. Yeah, I could start to give you a list here but that’s really just stoking a fire of irritability that needs no stoking. It’s the beginning of a worrying trend, one that began with the middle-of-the-road-ing of my music tastes (as The Brother pointed out to me a while back, we used to laugh mockingly at Alan Partridge’s music tastes and now have playlists that aren’t entirely dissimilar) and one that is continuing with the early onset of old-man-shaking-the-fists-at-the-kids-in-the-time-honoured-get-off-my-lawn-gesture sort of thing. Sure, I get that it’s something that everyone goes through - a step past the realisation that you’re turning into the generation above you and a step further to accepting it and embracing it wholeheartedly with a comfy cardigan and a nice pair of slippers.”

And that’s it. It grinds to a halt there. I started it, went to do something else and, despite efforts to kickstart it, the thread was lost. I just don’t know where I was going to go with that or if it was going anywhere that wasn’t cliched or trite. Instead, you've got it as it is - a half-formed thought that doesn’t really say much of anything. Still, managed to wring something out of it, eh? Let me know if you want more half-baked musings, there’s the skeletons of a few old posts lurking around...

* Or as close as I get to an ending, anyway. The phrase “fizzle out” is truly well suited to describing most of the things I write on here.

** There’s a really old-school Hulk reference for you. None of your Mark Ruffalos, Edward Nortons or even Eric Banas here.