The Patch Blogging Hour, Half-hour, Happy-hour

So you’ve maybe been thinking about blogging? But writing is “scary stuff.” I hear ya. I dig where you’re coming from. And does a comma go there? I’m not sure but I know I’ll look stupid. (There was “supposed” to be a comma after “sure,” since “but” signals a change in the logic’s direction….darn it…blew it again…)

The Problem With Writing

The thought of writing scares people for several reasons. The first time you “wrote” it was probably with a crayon and the medium was a wall. And then there are all those English teachers who hemorrhaged all over your stunningly brilliant ideas. And there was that time you left the “Had a great time. I’ll give you a call soon…” note for someone to read and you learned that committing words to paper made them impossible to take back. Well, after you ran into that person again, you learned that lesson…

Several years of therapy can get most of us past that particular living room wall and the English teachers easily enough. But there ain’t a damn thing to be done about the written word’s finality.

The Myth of “The Writer”

So we tell ourselves that “we can’t write” and we invent elaborate myths about writers being “special” people who drink a lot, swear, get in bar fights, deep-sea fish, and then, at the end of the day press “print.” Actually, it’s not really a myth because some of us do drink quite a bit, swear so forcefully sailors blush, fish constantly, and then, as the sun sets serenely we press “print.” We are, after all, special.

The Solution

For the rest of us there is this deal called, “The Writing Process.” We muddle through and it’s different for everyone. Part of includes learning how to write every time we sit down to, well, write I suppose. It helps to talk about it. To hear what other people do when they sit down to stare at that horribly blank page.

That’s why we’re starting the Patch Blogging Hour, Half-Hour, Happy Hour. Pete, Our Fearless Editor, thought it’d be a good idea. Or so I assume because he’s made me Blogging Coordinator…maybe it was Blogging Tzar…

We’ll have fun at The Oggi’s Patio Blogging Hour, Half-Hour, Happy Hour. More importantly, we’ll have fun getting you past whatever is blocking you from blogging by looking at your particular process. And I know what you’re thinking: “but I don’t have a writing process.” Yeah, me neither, I just press “print.”

Thursday, May 10th, 2012
5–7 p.m.
Oggi’s Patio
23641Via Linda
Mission Viejo