What to write when you don't know what to write!

     Hey friends! A few weeks ago, a new friend (who has done pretty amazing stuff, if I may say so), asked me what it's like to write a blog, and that she had considered starting one for a long time and just hadn't yet. It really surprised me that she asked that, because it seemed to me that someone who has already put so many cool and innovative ideas into motion that she would be able to make a simple blog in her sleep, but it is something of an artform of its own. Today I would like to talk just a bit about what goes into my blog most of the time, and hopefully this will help to encourage anyone who is on the fence about starting a blog or any other artistic pursuit. Happy reading and writing!

    The hardest part of the whole process is just to find something that you want to write about. In my case, since I write a new post every week, it's especially difficult, since there is a pretty high chance that there's not a new video game that I've just finished in time to write a review, and there's not a movie that I'm wanting to write about or anything like that. I'll get lucky occasionally and there will be some sort of news briefing that week that I'll be able to write up. On the great weeks where new theme park information will come out, there will be some piece that's big enough to latch onto and write a whole post about, which is always exciting. Those are my favorite kinds of weeks, though of course, those are few and far between. I will go back and write something of a retrospective about a game or movie that I really liked from back in the day every now and then. Holiday posts I've always tried to make about the holiday, connecting it to some medium that I enjoy, Birthdays I use more as a reflection over the past year, along with my blog anniversary posts. It's nice to every now and then come up with something reflective, something about how I'm feeling about a certain situation in my life, but I feel those take a bit longer. Those are definitely the hardest posts for me to write, as it's harder to write something real about yourself than it is to write a review of a game that you've played.

    Of course, that's just for me, it's up to you to decide what it is that you love enough that you'd be willing to write about. I have a lot of interests, so I said when I started that I would talk about movies, TV shows, video games, and theme parks, but that's just me. For you, it could be anything! You could talk about plays, current events, pop culture, what structure on a playground is the best (and why it's that giant wheel that you hang on to while it spins), or whatever catches your interest. If making a weekly upload as I've been doing is too rough, make it whatever timeframe you feel most confident in! There's certainly no standard for this form, and you can really make it whatever you want to. The thing about a blog is that they have the potential to be as unique as each individual person. It's not about being the same person that everyone else is, it's all about expressing yourself in a way that only you can do.

    I've talked a lot recently about the importance of making your own special talents useful, since it will ultimately make you feel better and more fulfilled, along with just being more successful overall. That goes double for something like writing a blog. It's such a personal project that you really need to put bits of yourself into. I'm not great at writing personal posts even now, but even with the less personal ones, you have to have your own voice and own thoughts on them, as that's the whole point. Of course, you don't have to completely open up and share all of your thoughts and feelings on every subject, but for a lot of people, this is a good place to hammer down your thoughts on different things. Even if you don't publish something, I think it can be useful to write down thoughts every now and then. Sometimes, I'll get a feeling that something isn't quite right, and then when I write about it, it can make things feel a little bit better at least, even if it doesn't really change anything.

    Well, I know this has not been a very informative post, but I just thought it could potentially help someone out there who is struggling with getting started. Just think about what really matters to you, maybe talk about things with friends and see what topic would be best and go from there. The most important thing is just to get started and write something. Not every post is going to be a Mona Lisa, but it is art, in the sense that humans are making them all the time, and using their own minds to create something of their own.

    Thanks for reading this post, friends, it's pretty existential I guess, which was not my original intent. I'm really hoping that this will help someone somewhere who is trying to get started with something like this, because getting started is incredibly hard. I sat around for a long time thinking about starting one, and shockingly, nothing happened until one day when I just decided to sit down and write something to put it out there. It took a few more weeks before I felt comfortable enough to show it off to some friends who helped me feel better about it. I hope you'll all have a great week, and I'll talk to you soon. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed blogger, and I hope you're working towards making your thoughts and dreams become real.