Focus

It’s interesting to read a blog and see what the author focuses on. You can tell, for example, by reading my blog that I’m a people watcher. I also tend to rant a great deal about the awful, impolite, incorrect or annoying things that people do.  Or at least I find them awful, impolite, incorrect or annoying.  These are probably not healthy things for me to focus on. I probably ought to redirect that focus.

Some bloggers talk politics. Others talk writing or projects. Others still talk about family or business.  I guess I find this interesting because I always thought I could be like my favorite authors. That I would blog about writing and having coffee with my writer friends while we talked about writing. That I’d somehow end up with a collection of amusing anecdotes from these encounters.

Or perhaps I’d discuss craft or benign, non-controversial things like my favorite authors do.

That’s when I realized I’m nothing like any of my favorite authors. I seem to bring controversy no matter where I go. I’m too honest for my own good because I imagine things that annoy me as an author probably annoy other authors – they’re just too polite to say so.  I do tend to shine a bright light on the perils of the darker side of human behavior.

I often wonder if this insight is something that will be to my detriment as both an author and a blogger. I guess for some readers it probably is a huge turn off. But others have said they find it refreshing.

Yet there is a part of me that longs to be normal. And by normal I mean safe, milk-toast, benign and friendly like all of my favorite authors and their blogs.