Become A Better, Smarter & Sexier Blogger

The pundits say if you want to be a better blogger you should follow their rules and do as they do, write as they write and blog as they blog.

But not me, I am of the school of ‘fuck ’em’ for telling me what to do, how to think and how to be.

Ok, that is not eloquent, elegant, insightful or profound but you don’t come here to listen to me tell you how to monetize your blog or to get the goods on how to become the biggest and bestest dad blogger ever.

If you haven’t figured out that old Jack is out of sorts and irritated yet than let me clue you in…I got a double dose of the curmudgeon’s custard and I’d shoot you full of water with the high pressure nozzle on my hose.

Did that scare you off of my lawn?

If it didn’t and you care to hang out I’ll toss you a beer/Coke or pour a cup of coffee and share part of a story with you.

My storm started around January of 2003 or so. Might have been earlier, might have been later but I am not entirely sure and I don’t know if it matters.

What I know is much if not most of what I thought would happen in my adult life has turned out to be very different than I would have expected it to be.

Some of that is very good and I am grateful because the track I was on was wrong for me. I was in the wrong profession and chasing after the wrong set of dreams for me.

Ask me what changed and I’ll tell you that life happened and it forced me to take a very hard look at what I had been doing and where I was heading. For those who are curious it wasn’t illegal or dangerous, it was just a career in sales and business development.

I was good at it but it wasn’t right for me because it didn’t fill nurture my soul or make my heart sing. I was on autopilot most days.

Ask a couple of questions, tell the right story and then sign the contract and move on.

And Then Came The Tornado

Prior to the tornado I would have responded to comments about nurturing my soul and following my heart with some sort of snarky remark. You would have heard me make fun of the ‘woo woo’ aspect and then I probably would have rolled my eyes.

That doesn’t happen now because of what I have been through and what I have seen.

The details of what happened don’t really matter because the end result is I realized I had to change my life, had to refocus and reorient. So I did and I am and now I am staring at the wreckage that was left behind.

Or at least I think I am, because the truth is I am no longer certain if the storm has passed or if I just lived through one section and have entered or am entering the second half.

I don’t know if that frightens or excites me. I just know that my perspective on some things lacks the clarity I normally have and I find that a bit disconcerting.

Maybe it is part of growth and evolution.

Murakami writes about how the storm changes you and I gather that it is very clear that I am not who I once was. Don’t know if that is good or bad or if it has to be either.

What I see as most significant is how important it is to me to follow a song only I can hear. It is one that plays inside my head and guides me towards the aforementioned things that make my heart sing.

And I would include the importance of having experienced things that have improved my writing and made me a more effective communicator than I was.

Become A Better, Smarter & Sexier Blogger

I included ‘sexier’ in the headline only because it makes people click but it is not a focal point at all. The goal isn’t to say I have become a better writer and to just quit.

It is to keep pushing harder to continue to improve and to strive to write posts that I am proud to say I am the author of.

That song inside my head caresses my heart with signs and symbols that make me think I have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. It tells me that there is more than one story inside that people will want to read and that I need to find the key to unlock the closet in which they lie hidden.

The road I am on is obscured by clouds and mist and there are many moments when I feel like I am walking blindly but I can’t go back. Can’t be the guy I used to be because he died.

Or if he didn’t die he just disappeared, doesn’t matter where he is because I know where he is not.

But what I don’t know is what the journey will bring or who will walk with me because some of those I would have sworn would always be are not.

Some by their choice and some by mine.

Others to be determined and or discovered somewhere down the road.

Time to run my friends, midnight approaches and I need to catch some shut eye so that I can post again tomorrow. Yeah, this is part of Nablopomo and technically it is my third post of the day.

Can’t say it is necessarily my best or the worst but I can say that if you want to be a writer you have to write even when you don’t feel like writing. I didn’t want to bang this out tonight, but I am determined to improve, so I did.

• Saved: Blogging