To Blog or Not to Blog....

what was the question??

I'm a writer. I've had the dreaded writer's block, with a deadline looming. I sit there and look at the monitor and nothing happens. It's like "I have no mouth and I must scream." I don't know how to overcome this.

I carry on a running dialogue in my head most of the time. When I'm asleep, I live another life. After recounting one of my recent 'in-house' dialogues to a friend, he suggested while shaking his head "Dude, why don't you start a blog?". I looked at him like he was insane. He said it would be good therapy for the block in my head.

Blogs, like tattoos and pierced eyebrows, seem to be the new 'in' thing these days. Like TV reality shows, I never understood the fascination with them. People hang out their laundry and wear their hearts (or other body parts) on their sleeves on blogs. I don't see the fascination of parading your private life on the Internet. I suppose it has some therapeutic benefit for some, much like group counseling. Or maybe it serves to fill an empty spot in an otherwise empty life. Perhaps it provides a public canvas for would-be or wannabe writers to paint with their words.

Ironically, I read one blog this year which altered my perspective of blogs. It belongs to a soldier serving in the war in Iraq. For the first time I looked through someone else's eyes on what transpires over there: uncensored, unpolished, and unpolitically correct. It was a personal and observational account that is not available from any public media source. *This* is what blogs are for.

A close friend and colleague recently started a blog. She's enjoying it and I read it weekly. I enjoy reading it. I see a part of her that is full of wonder and life, despite the daily trudging through various levels of dirt and grease (another definition of life).

So why did I start one? I'm still asking myself that. I'm a macro-microbe on this planet. A singular soul who has no claims to fame (and doesn't want any), a relatively private and reserved individual; the only war I'm a veteran of is 5 decades of life, and is probably only writing for one audience: myself. Because I like to write, and sometimes read.

We shall see how this experiment progresses.

BTW, do these things have spell checkers???......