What to Write?

Introduction

This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I have no idea what to write about.

Warning: This post will be rambly.

Brainstorming

This process is something of a mystery for me. Often I find my brain will wander off into the sunset without a clue where it’s going and then all of a sudden something pops into my head. Usually it’s related to some discussion I’m having. I’ll be conversing with someone who mentions one thing, and then some other connected thing might pop into my head. I try to write all of these things down, and if I wrote everything I had an idea for down, I’d probably have a whole book full of prompts. But I don’t, so I don’t. That should be part of my diving into Getting Things Done system.

Other times, when I’m really stuck for an idea I turn to the internet for suggestions. The first thing I do is look up something like blog ideas in a search engine and then look through the various listicles for inspiration. Usually when I read some point on a listicle I’ll get inspiration for something completely unrelated. I’m not sure how that happens, but it sure is useful. If I don’t find anything interesting with this search, I’ll ask other people for suggestions.

I’ll post on Mastodon something that I’m interested in writing about and ask for a more narrow topic, like I’m going to do now. I asked, “I’d like to write about free software but nothing really political. Any ideas? It’s for the personal blog[.]” If I get any bites, I’ll use that suggestion for the next post. But…what happens when I still have no idea what to write about?

Bone Dry

When the pool of ideas gets really dried up, and it hasn’t happened yet, I’ll try to think about something I did throughout the day. Whether it’s a difficulty that I had and overcame or if it’s something new that changes some part of my life.

For example, one of those new things is that I got an extension on my employment contract. So the resulting post might be about what it’s like to be working on contract. As well maybe the disadvantages of being on contract vs. being a full time employee.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever truly run out of ideas, but it certainly won’t stop me from writing! Just like it didn’t stop me today. I had no idea what to write so I decided to write about not knowing what to write.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this silly post. At this point, you could probably leave if you wish. There’s not much more to read, really. In fact, I’m not quite sure why you’re still here. You’re really just torturing yourself by staying. If I were you, I think I’d be long gone. But yet, you’re still here reading. That’s probably because you’re a really cool person. So congratulations on being cool! Thank you for taking the time to read through this whole thing. You get a gold star! Jeez, you’re STILL here? I thought that most people would be gauging their eyes or ripping their hair out by now. But for real, this post is over. Just. Fucking. Leave! Get out of my house! Okay, I’m done. Bye.