Burning Questions
Friday, July 22, 2011 at 12:56PM | by Katy It's a funny thing this writing business (if you want to call The Morgan Trail a business). Sometimes I can churn out three posts a day. Other times, I hardly write one a month. A good friend of ours, Bo, has expressed a similar frustration on his blog. He calls it Paralyzing Perfectionism. Add it to my list of disorders.
Writing is an activity I tend to gravitate toward when I'm feeling "up." After all, who wants to read the incoherent ramblings of a depressed, stay-at-home-mom as she invites you to join her pity party of self-loathing? There's enough negative smut on the Internet that I try not to contribute to it when I'm feeling "down" or depressed. On the other hand, there are few things that irritate me more than reading all about someone's "perfect" life as they gush about it on Facebook or their blog. It's nauseating to read about their perfect life with their perfect husbands who have a perfect job to support their perfect kids. Then they post their perfect pictures from their perfect second honeymoon while their perfect parents watched their perfect kids for three PERFECT weeks. It makes me want to egg their perfect house.
So, I guess you could say I try to write somewhere in the middle. Where most of us reside. That place where we are comfortable enough with ourselves to admit that we DON'T have it all figured out. (By the way, I just washed an entire load of white clothes with a fluorescent yellow scarf. Epic housewife fail.) I've had lots of people express appreciation for the fact that I do open up about my struggles with depression or bipolar or whatever you want to call it. I've had friends and complete strangers thank me for writing from an honest place. And that's when I start to get excited. Like maybe this is something God has created me to do - to put words together on a blank page that will one day encourage others to live for His glory. And, of course, to learn to laugh at ourselves in the process.
Sometimes it just takes a little nudge. A little encouragement to get started. That's what Bo's blog post did for me this morning. I needed that reassurance that not everything I write or create has to be a masterpiece. Sometimes the most important thing is just to start.
And this all brings me to the point of this particular blog post. I get excited when I look at the statistics for our website and realize that, lo and behold, there are people out there who actually read this stuff. And, believe it or not, there are people who actually come across our site through search engines. But, when I looked a little bit further to see what top keywords people searched that led them to our site, this is what I discovered:
Tom Cruise hates psychotherapy
Okay, so I completely deserve that one. Next?
Pictures for enormous bums
What, exactly, have I written that would point a search engine to our site to give people more information on enormous bums? Is this supposed to be a pregnancy joke or something? 'Cause I'm not laughing!
If your pee is bubbly does this mean something bad?
Bubbly pee? Really? First of all, call your doctor. Or maybe your plumber. Second of all, why does a search engine point them to our blog? Is it because I'm obsessed with WebMD? I bet it is. Great, now we're going to get lots of people coming here who are searching for answers to their most "burning" (pun intended) medical questions.
Now I'm going to put it back to you, my dear readers. What are your favorite kinds of stories/articles to read? Or, better yet, what are some of your favorite blogs, websites, magazines out there that you read on a regular basis? (One of my absolute favorites is The Pioneer Woman.) Do you have any "burning questions" that I (or WebMD) could answer for you? I'd love to write more about the things that interest YOU!
Daily Life
Reader Comments (10)
Finding humor in everyday life are the blogs I enjoy the most. Especially when you debunk the myth of "motherhood is perfect in every way." I also love the ones about funny British culture, can't get enough of that.
Your sense of humor comes through in every post and that is what I enjoy reading the most. That is probably the thing I miss the most with us being so far apart, is your unique sense of humor. You have an amazing way of making me laugh when I least want to and that is why I come to the blog. Just seeing that you have posted something new brightens my day because I do know that you tend to write when things are "up" and that too cheers me up knowing you are ok that particular day! Remember, writing is like looking in the mirror, no one else sees the tiny imperfections that we fixate on. They see all the beautiful things that we take for granted. As you have already stated, get it down, don't worry about getting it perfect. Unless it is for a college thesis, nobody cares if it is perfect. We just want more "Cowbell", I mean "Katy"!
Sweetest brother ever!
Ok, so I know this post isn't really about laundry, but you went there, so I'd like to discuss.
I guess you should know that I've done laundry exactly 3 times since moving here. The first time, I left an ink pen in my pocket which made it into the dryer before exploding onto every single piece of clothing I own. Every. Single. Piece.
The second time, I got distracted and left them in the washing machine overnight. I smelled sick-nasty like mildew for the next month.
The last time, a red sock somehow made it in the mix. I have never, nor will ever, own a single bright red sock. How it got there, I haven't a clue.
All I know is that my ink splotchy, mildew smelly, pink tinted clothes thought they couldn't possibly get any more screwed up.
So hearing of your highlighter-infusion, I was both relieved and scared. Relieved that someone else has messed up their laundry in such glorious fashion. And scared to know that I'll be doing laundry again this week, wondering what other forms of laundrous evil I've not yet dreamed of lie waiting in the mouths of the spinning monsters.
One of my favorite blogs is Marriage Confessions (http://www.marriageconfessions.com). Katie is authentic - we see her humor as well as her struggles with depression in her writing, and so much more. Definitely give her a peek if you haven't already.
As for what to write, well, I write for myself. I won't lie and say I could care less if I get comments, because ultimately, on some level, everyone wants validation. Still, since I don't look at my blog even remotely as a business, moneymaker, etc., I have the freedom to post what I want, when I want it, and I really like that.
One of my favorite authors was Lewis Grizzard. He had an incredible ability to make you laugh in one article or book and then cry in the next one. That's what made him one of my favorites. He could reach all levels of your emotion.
Jim Valvano in his famous speech on ESPN said it best:
"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."
So I like writing that moves my emotions whether to laugh, think or cry. But you already know how hard it is to make me cry. (Drew's comment notwithstanding.) So just work on the other two.
Love you,
Dad
our cruise was only 2 weeks, not three :)
and since i'm a retard, that was supposed to go with the other blog-the house one! :)
so pretty.You are a good teacher. Lucky student! gespdz gespdz - Belstaff Lederjacke.
Thanks for sharing this. I really do appreciate your effort here.
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