Ode to my own blog

Yesterday afternoon I had to attend a writing seminar for teachers. This is a regular thing we have to go to and we get paid extra so I don't mind. I mean, spending all afternoon writing is not really something I bitch about, although I am terribly fond of bitching about meetings.

Anyway yesterday's lesson was about persuasive writing so we were asked to write a persuasive essay on any topic. I decided to work on a variation of my semi-annual "Get off your lazy ass and work on your goddamn screenplay" rant. I'll post the finished product tomorrow.

Our first task was to write our arguments on yellow post-its, then write the opposing arguments on blue post-its. So I did that quickly and then waited. And I looked around the room to see every other person just struggling. Then it came time to write and I yanked out my laptop and just tippity tappitied away like gangbusters. Occasionally I'd glance around the room and see others crumpling up paper and scratching things out and huffing and throwing their hands in the air. At one point a friend across the room texted me: "Are you actually doing the assignment?"

And that's when it hit me. I've taken this blog for granted. This task was so super easy for me because I do this five days a week. I post. Best Friend, who was sitting next to me, reminded me that I also write different things here. Sometimes it's a review, sometimes a narrative, sometimes and essay. Throw whatever writing task you want at me, I'll roll with it. The only thing I have trouble with is purely academic essays that leave no room for humor. I hate those.

A guy next to me read my essay and said "I'm jealous of your voice." What did he write, you may ask? Nothing. He just couldn't get inspired, he said. He's always like that. If he does write something, he always prefaces his reading with an excuse about how tired he is so we won't expect too much.

The essays people wrote were all decent, of course. We are all English teachers. But I just sort of had a moment there in that room where I realized that the blog has removed writer's block from my vocabulary.

I decided some time ago that I would post every single week day because when you post every day more people read your blog. That means every morning I have to think of something to write about. Sometimes I have trouble, but in the end I always come up with something, and I never realized before yesterday how damn useful that's been to me as a writer.

So I gotta say, if you have trouble with writers block, write something every day. It worked for me. I practice writing everything so that when I need that skill, there it is all ready to come out. And I didn't even mean for that to happen - I just wanted to say stuff.