Category Archives: Writing

Tense about tense.

Writing

First of all, thanks to all of you that have stopped by to take a look at HA. And special thanks to anyone who actually read that self reflecting drivel. Please feel free to leave a comment, even if they’re negative. ADD sufferers would rather have negative attention than no attention at all.

Yesterday I laid down some rules about what I’m not going to write about and I intend to follow them faithfully, unless I don’t.

Thanks for indulging me while I try to write my way out of this fucking block that has had me paralyzed for most of the month. I think that’s the key, just banging out my thoughts, getting down on paper what I’m thinking about the process. On paper?? WTF? Next I’ll be putting out an a record. Another key I’ve been thinking about is finding a voice. From December of ’03 through May of  ’08, I  had a blog going on Xanga. I think I had a voice there, but I think I lost it when I started this blog. I have been trying a little too hard to perfect my syntax and grammar and all that high falutin’ stuff. I didn’t want to screw up the tense or shift viewpoints or be cliched (which I’ll probably never avoid) so I’ve been thinking more than I’ve been writing. Part of the problem might be years trying so hard to be dry, concise and professional in my business memos at Dex. Writing for the humor impaired.  I didn’t really succeed at that either. A colloquial voice works best for me, kind of blue collar casual. Some of you that know me might chuckle over me thinking of myself as blue collar, with my pampered youth and all those years of being a corporate lackey. But as a pup I spent a lot of time wandering around the West Fargo Stockyards, were I learned my most colorful vocabulary. That’s about as blue collar as you can get. Plus I’ve worked plenty of blue collar jobs back in the day, too many to list here, but that’s a post of it’s its own. Anyway, I’m not going to fret too much about crimes against the King’s English, but just try to pound out the words in a more casual, conversational manner.

English majors, grammar nazis, please take your best editorial shots. Pick my writing apart if you want, my skin is thick. And bad attention is….

Process of Elimination

Life, Writing

First of all I a sad story. A classmate of my wife returned home to be with his dying father. On his first night in town the son died in his sleep. The father died later in the day. I wonder how people handle things like that, but I guess we just handle it. The feeling of grief and disorientation in a situation like that is unfathomable. The clock is ticking, we just don’t know what time the alarm is set to.

And now as promised, and I know you have been waiting breathlessly for this next self indulgent spew, I’m going to publicly work through my thinking process as I try to decide just what the hell I’m writing this blog for. I think the first thing I need to establish is what I’m NOT going to write about.

I’m not going to write about family drama. Not that there isn’t plenty to write about. Although I’m only part Scando-German, I grew up in Minnesota, and we don’t even talk about that stuff to each other, let alone broadcast it. Remember the Norwegian farmer who loved his wife so much he almost told her? That’s not a joke, it’s a statement of fact. Same goes with friends, I have enough trouble with relationships, I seem to have a talent for pissing people off. I don’t need to hang those shorts out in public. I might make an exception in the name of self deprecating humor, my social ineptitude makes for some pretty amusing situations.

I’m not going to write about politics. Mostly because I’m just not qualified. I’m kind of a knee-jerk liberal, a liberal by faith and instinct. I’m really not very good at defending my principles. I’m not even sure I have principles. I’ll leave that to others, like these guys. Unless I just get so pissed off at the Republicans or the Tea Baggers or Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman that I just can’t keep my mouth shut.

And finally I’m NOT going to write about the inner workings of my bowels. In an earlier post I mentioned how dooce has made a fortune writing about her constipation. I have the opposite problem, Crohn’s disease. There is a big difference between writing about constipation and writing about having a bad case of the runs. The latter is about the lack of shit, the other is all about shit. And all though I’ve tried to deal with this shitty situation with humor, and it has provided lots of material for humor, I don’t want to run the risk of over sharing.

So what the hell should I write about?