30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 26: I Have No Topic

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 25: Th... 30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 27: Oe...

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 26: I Have No Topic

Honesty, but at what cost?

So… this post was written yesterday morning, when I was sort of deep down the well of depression. I came home several hours later and about a million times happier, just from having been out of the house for a bit. I spent a while rereading this post, wondering if I should even publish it, because it’s sort of a rambling mess. But the truth is, it’s also honest. So in the end, I think I’ll go for it, but with the disclaimer that it’s a bit whiny and nonsensical and rather rough around the edges.

Written Yesterday

Four days left of this 30-day blogging challenge, and I have totally run out of things to say.

Colorado woke up to cold, dreary weather today. I’m okay with that. As I said a few days ago, I love October, and I’m absolutely ready for fall. Nonetheless, the overcast day is doing nothing to improve my mood. It’s a good thing I have an appointment for a haircut later today. Otherwise, I know this would end up being a really bad day as far as depression goes.

For the most part, doing the blogging challenge has been good. It gave me a reason to sit down at the keyboard each day. It gave me a bit of purpose. And yet, it also adds emphasis to this empty little hole that seems to have become my life.

I should be writing — if for no other reason, to keep from going insane — and yet I just have nothing to say. And even if I did, nobody’s really listening. While I greatly appreciate the few people who have stopped by over the last few weeks, all I’ve really done is confirm my belief that very few people read blogs these days, especially if there’s nothing material (like a giveaway) to be gained.

I get it. I mean, we all have full lives. And these days, there are just so many authors and so many blogs and so many people spewing their opinions into the blogosphere. It’s overwhelming and exhausting for many readers. In some ways, that’s how the book world feels too. There are just too many of us, and very few people want to read the author who’s been around for years when there are so many brand new writers to discover. As an author, it can be relatively easy to make a little splash with those first few books. Seven years and thirty titles later, though, the splashes are lost in the hubbub.

I’m probably not making sense. Or, I’m making sense to a few other authors out there, but we all know there just isn’t much to be done about it. Either keep writing books, or don’t. Learn to separate your self-worth from your finished product or lose your damned mind trying. I desperately need something to give my days structure, and yet when I think back to writing the books, revising the books, doing edits, waiting for some kind of sign that it hadn’t been in vain…. I can’t go back to that. I’d rather just climb into a deep dark hole somewhere and sleep.

But I know that isn’t healthy.

I still don’t know exactly where this is going. I’m trying to be honest, but also trying not to whine. And frankly, everything about being an author online is (for me) a constant battle between what I’d like to say and what I’m allowed to say. Sure, some authors seem to get some kind of satisfaction out of being mean and venomous. They seem to find joy in stirring up trouble. They have no problem speaking their minds, even if it offends half their followers.

I’m not one of them. I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m saying. But I hate having to bite my tongue every second of every day. At this point, I feel like I can barely even take a breath without risking attack. Every thought, every book, every tweet, every simple reblog on Tumblr is fodder for some pitchfork-wielding asshole, and I just don’t have the energy to deal with it. We have created a culture of forced compliance. Not only can we not speak our minds, we can’t NOT agree with the hive. God forbid you don’t fall into the mob when it comes time to railroad somebody. You may as well tar and feather yourself rather than sit around waiting for the haters to do it.

I have always been an outlier. I’m an outlier with regards to religion, with regards to music and books, with regards to politics, with regards to just about every hot-button issue you might name. I tend to think contrary to the crowd. Back when I was in my twenties, or even my thirties, I might have taken pride in that, but at this point, I just find it exhausting. I feel like I’d give anything to get through one day without feeling like the underdog. (This isn’t a movie. In real life, the underdog gets eviscerated online, and s/he certainly NEVER wins.)

I know I’m babbling, and it probably sounds completely nonsensical. It probably is. In the end, I doubt I’ll even publish this.

But I can’t think about that today. Not at this moment, at any rate. Right now, I have to face walking out the door, hoping nobody wants to talk to me about the presidential election (not because I don’t care, but because I *do*), hoping nobody asks me “how’s the writing going?” because then I have to say “it isn’t.” Hoping I can just get all the way through to this afternoon when my family comes home and asks how my day was and I lie and say it was fine.

I don’t know for sure what any of that means. I just know I’m stuck in this tar pit, and there doesn’t seem to be a way for somebody like me to break free.

Addendum, written later that day:

So, I should probably start by saying: I’m fine. Or, maybe I’m not, but this is sort of how it goes. There’s no need to call an ambulance or anything like that. I left the house, the sun came out, I came home with a bit of a purpose in mind. Even it was only to get online and sell some tickets to a game we can’t attend, it’s something.

This gig has always been a series of ups and downs for me. Some weeks go better than others.

I’d also like to encourage everybody to read the book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson. I know this sounds like a self-help book for somebody who’s already been shamed, but that’s NOT what it’s about. It’s more about the culture of shame we’ve created on many of our social media outlets, and it’s a real eye-opener. If nothing else, watch his TED Talk (which covers one little chapter of the book). I promise you, you’ll never look at Twitter the same way again.