What To Write

What to Write

What to write? Or maybe; what do I want to write? Or even this; what do I want to write about? These are some of the questions that I struggle with as I try and begin to call myself a writer.

I own a varied collection of books to use as references as I try to answer any, or all of these questions. I own books on history, philosophy, theology, literature, and poetry. A few books on cultural topics that interest me, and an increasing collection of spy novels. I have a few old math textbooks because even though I cannot do the math, at least at the collegiate level quickly enough I still want to learn it. I have a few science books for that two minutes that I wanted to study physics. I have many books on self-sufficient living again which I would like to do but just never got started with. I have a few art instruction books, bird books, more cookbooks that I believe, and of course quite many writing books. To say that I have an eclectic collection, or library, or whatever is an understatement. Most of these I will never read in my lifetime; however, I still keep adding to it. Even today I purchased a new book which I may never get to.

Which brings me back to the original point of this rambling; what to write? I believe, but don't practice what I read about in all the writing instructions books that I have. That is write something daily. My life is not that busy that I can't do this. For instance, this is the first writing I have done in almost two weeks. I don't know why.

Since I seem to have all of this time on my hands; what seems to be the problem? I can come up with several reasons, or maybe excuses would be a better word for them. One, I can't seem to stay focused long enough to finish anything. I have some health issues which may be the cause. The main one being able to stay awake long enough to get much reading or writing done. I could use an excuse that I am getting older, but I would rather not. There has to be a solution to this problem.

The second excuse goes back to the beginning of this babbling is what do I want to write? As I wrote earlier I have a varied collection of stuff on hand that I could write about. I have life experiences as well that I could reference as well, as my books. I also have a lot of stuff on my other reason I don't write, my computer.

Away to segue into another excuse that I don't write is that computer, or more specifically the internet. I spend way too much time on the internet doing things I use as time wasters. Checking sports scores all evening, looking at the news every thirty minutes when nothing that important has happened. Looking at social networks which give me much of the news, sports scores that really are not that important.

Do I have other excuses? Yes, I'm sure if I think about it long enough I can come up with some more, but three is enough to whine about for now. Now, though instead of just stopping and whining I am going to write some possible solutions to these excuses.

My first excuse, lack of focus. How can I solve that along with my "sub excuse" of not being able to stay awake? I have tried a few different things with some success. One is to have several different books or writing projects to move back and forth from. My constant sleepiness means that I have to just stop when it gets bad enough to stay awake, and just get up and walk around. I'm not really sure if either of those is the best solution, but it seems to be the only ones I can come up with for the time being.

The next excuse, my internet time can be solved by just not being online. Too spend internet time on other things. Reading time, or writing time, or other more important things. I don't need to look up baseball scores every five minutes every night.

The last excuse and the title of this little rant; what to write? I believe the best solution to this problem is to pick a topic to write about and stick to it. Research it, write about it. Whatever it may be. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry. I don't need to worry about how long it takes, but to just write, as I wrote earlier in this piece.

This little piece of rambling has taken me about two and a half hours to compose. I have done it initially using pen and paper. Amazing in today's day and age of electronic gizmos. I have done it also without the distraction of the internet. I did have to stop a few times and get up because I was getting sleepy. I did this at my favorite bookstore in Wichita; Eighth Day Books. I actually accomplished the main objective of this essay. I wrote about something.