The Method (Is There a Method??) Behind the Blog (And, a Free Promotion)

Time flies.

It’s a cliche, I know, but sometimes the tried-and-true aphorisms say it succinctly and well, and this particular one is spot-on.  Take The Eye-Dancers blog, for instance.  I began this blog, clueless as to how to proceed with it, back in the summer of 2012.  It’s hard to believe six years have come and gone.  But this brings to mind the completion of the “time flies” truism:  Time flies when you’re having fun.  And this blog has been a joy because of all of you.

 

Don’t get the wrong idea.  The way that last paragraph reads, it almost sounds like I’m about to announce the termination of The Eye-Dancers blog.  Not at all!  As long as you want to continue perusing these flights of fancy of mine, I will stick around.  The WordPress community is a special place, and I intend to remain a part of it for the long haul.

 

But I’m struck by how little I’ve changed in my approach to blogging over the years.  Granted, I am no longer new at this.  Six years and over two hundred posts, and, most important of all, your enduring support and encouragement, have helped me feel a lot more comfortable than I did at the start.  The fact remains, though–even now, after all this time, I don’t really have a blogging blueprint, a template, or a schedule.  As the time arrives for my next post, I kind of go with whatever feels right at the moment.  Sometimes this approach may work well.  After all, if I feel inspired to write about something, as opposed to scheduling a post weeks or months in advance, then, hopefully, the prose will be alive and imbued with the heat and purity of inspiration.  On the other hand, without a clear, precise sense of order, the blog may at times seem haphazard and too random.  (Not to mention, the risk of being repetitive.  If I post about something one week, and two or three posts later, I post about something similar because it “feels right,” I may not be tuned in enough to the overlap of the two posts.)

 

How about you?  How do you approach your blog posts?  Do you, as I do, lack a blueprint and forego a script, as it were?  Or do you plan ahead, map out a course of literary action, and, as Marc Kuslanski would surely advocate, prepare several posts ahead?  As with any form of writing, from poetry to short stories to novels and everything in between, fiction and nonfiction alike, there is no one “right” approach.  I am always leery of anyone who attempts to prescribe a set guideline of rules and rituals for writers to follow.  When it comes to creativity, we ought, in the words of Thoreau, to “step to the music which [we] hear, however measured or far away.”

 

And I know, for me, few things in the creative life (in life, period) can match the moment of euphoria when an idea strikes.  It could be anytime, too.  It cannot be scheduled or prepared for.  Creative epiphanies are as capricious as the New England weather.  You can meditate all day, turn an idea over, explore every angle, and come up with nothing, gutted, tempted to take your WIP and toss it in the fireplace for kindling.  Or, you can be taking a walk, showering, mowing the lawn, playing softball, preparing for your fantasy football draft, arguing with a friend, driving down the interstate, and–bam!  The idea hits, with the force and impact of a boulder.  When this happens to me, this unplanned-for gift, I try to hold onto the insight, repeating it over and over if need be, until I am in a position where I can jot the idea down on scrap paper.  (I am old school like that.  I prefer pencil and paper.  My desk is littered with scribbles on the next chapter, story, or blog post.)  And then, as soon as possible, while the idea is still hot and fresh, I let it out–and a post is published, a chapter is written, a short story is completed.

 

I suppose this approach, this reliance on a mysterious muse who flutters and floats, often tantalizingly  just beyond reach, a vision over the next rise, is something the intuitive Mitchell Brant would understand.  It’s organic, not pre-planned; spontaneous, not charted out with preordained precision.  And for someone like me, who has a tendency to over-prepare and obsess over the details, this freedom to allow the muse to guide me is both terrifying and rapturous.

 

In this spirit, I am also, extemporaneously, announcing a promotion for the e-book version of The Singularity Wheel.  If you might want to get a Kindle copy of the novel, now would be an ideal time.  Why?  Because it’s free!  Beginning today, through Friday, July 6, the electronic version of The Singularity Wheel is free.

 

Please feel “free” to take a look!  Here is the link.

And thank you again for the support all these years, for following along with the ramblings and the idiosyncrasies of this blog.  What will the next post be about?  I wish I knew!  But I hope you’ll be here to find out.

 

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike