If you have nothing to write about, don't let it stop you.

What if you're a writer and you have nothing to write about?

One of the great joys of having an archive of thousands of blog posts from the past twenty years is simply looking back and seeing what I thought was worth writing about in my 20s, 30s, and 40s.

I’d love to tell you about the steady improvement I’ve made in my writing in all that time, but I’ve no such gradual graph to share.

Nevertheless, the age-old problem of trying to blog regularly and having nothing to say never seemed to have stopped me. Then, like now, I even found the topic as something to blog about on April 16, 2009:

Plinky still exists today, though in an archive form.

It was bought up and replaced by the WordPress people, and took on a new format. Originally, you could respond to the questions and kind of build a microblog following. It was social media and blogging in the early days.

And in a way, it could be fun to use.

I wisely deleted my profile before Plinky went into archive mode and no deleting was possible. Despite the many stupid things I did and then wrote about, at least I had the presence of mind to do that.

But there’s still the question: if you’re writing about stuff you’re not really interested in, why are you writing unless it’s for a paying client? Because it rather seems as if we're overcommunicating in this world. We share an idea, then 20 people have to share their opinions on that idea, and then 100 people have to respond to those opinions by sharing their opinions on the opinions. And we can click to at least let someone know our emotional reaction.

It's a lot of communicating without maybe saying all that much.

Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.

I'm responsible for the words I put out there. God knows all of them and what kind of effect they had.

The same information tsunami drowning me is maybe something I shouldn't contribute to.

There are so many more blogs now than back when I started that it is difficult to be found now compared to back then. You have to write to capture search engine traffic and get shared on social media.

When I see or read the content others are making that seem borderline appropriate or detrimental I have to wonder if a mirror ought to be my reminder, too.

Too many opinions, which is what social media is, are a creative and mental slaughterhouse.

I have to earn an income and this website is part of how I do that.

You lose it if you talk about it.

Never explain yourself.

Less is more.

I don't know.

It may be okay to write about what to do when you have nothing to write about.