Kid and Caboodle

I’ve been looking at various Web sites and newspapers all week trying to find inspiration for a new post for the group blog I contribute to at work. No luck yet. I’ve noticed that lately I’ve been having bouts of writer’s block more and more often.

Well, perhaps that’s not quite accurate. What I think is happening is that I’m beginning to censor myself. I’ll read about something and think, “That’s interesting!” But then I’ll say to myself, “My blog entry has to be about democracy, human rights, or government. I can’t see how this fits with any of those topics.” At other times I’ll think, “I wrote about that already; I shouldn’t repeat myself.”

I wonder if these concerns are really important, though. Why not let the blog facilitator decide if a potential blog entry is too tangential? So far my track record has been excellent; I’ve had only one blog entry rejected as too far off-topic. True, it was annoying to have all the time I spent writing that piece wasted, but perhaps I should trust myself more. And what’s wrong with going back to an issue and exploring a different angle or looking at it in more depth? The way the blog is structured, with different writers taking turns, it might be fine to write on a specific theme for a while and have some continuity.

One complication with the blog is that I don’t exactly know when a specific blog entry will be posted. This has made me reluctant to write anything time-sensitive. But I suppose scheduling is really the job of the blog facilitator, not mine. My job is to write.

But I still don’t know what to write about this week ….