This has been a very odd day for me. Rare, even exceptional – as in an exception. I’ve been poking around the internet, as I always do, time permitting, and nothing amuses me.
It’s not writer’s block because here I am writing. It’s something else. A sort of, eh, blah, no, been-there-done-that, where’s the next new fun thing to write about sort of a moment. A “Pause” to our environmental ‘friends.’ A hiccup in the hockey stick of accumulated blog posts currently nearing 14,000, at least on these pages.
I’ve thousands more on other websites, from NH Insider (no longer in existence) to the Frankin Center for Public Policy (now doing business as The Center Square). I’ve written for at least a dozen other outlets in some small measure, so the number of pieces “out there” will be closer to 20,000.
Tis but a scratch on the surface of digital punditry, but everyone needs a hobby. Mine is pissing off people in elected office. Aggravating the local lords and ladies of the ruling class bureaucracy. Elevating the op-eds of residents and readers to a larger audience, and increasingly one that is both national and global.
But today, nothing amuses me, and it must amuse me. That spark of energy and enthusiasm that generates a torrent of text but not more than 600 words, please. Internet minds don’t like them much longer than that.
And I try to write headlines I’d click on – that’s my typical litmus for everyone’s headlines. As the editor, I get to mess with them no matter whose they are, including the openings.
I ask myself, given the billions of things on the internet today with which I might distract myself, why would I click that?
As you well know, frequent readers, this method does not always work. And I must confess that there are times when there’s no time to make them better.
As for the momentary disinterest, the failure of headlines or content to amuse me, it won’t last. I’ll get a text, tweet, or email, and so many possibilities will bloom. Until then, you get this.
I hope it will do until another 90 minutes passes by and we publish something new.
