When I started my first blog back in 2005, I asked a lot of people for their advice. “What should I write about?” I asked. The advice most people tended to give me was, “write what you know.”
And so my posts on that blog focused on what I knew: sports, my family, my pets, and my job. I enjoyed the writing part, but despite how fascinating my life was to me, few others, including my own family members, seemed to care about the ins and outs of my activities of daily living. Even I got bored reading my blog. So I quit blogging.
But I missed writing, so a few years later, I tried blogging again. That time I decided, rather than writing about what I know, I would write about how I feel. That didn’t work out so well, though, because I’m not really in touch with my feelings. So I once again quit blogging.
When I started this blog last May, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. Then I started seeing all these writing prompts. Write a story about a word. Craft a tale about a photo or an image. Create a fantasy built around a song lyric. And that’s when I discovered that I have an imagination.
And that’s why many of my posts these days tend to be short flash fiction pieces. Sure, I still post about what’s going on in the world around me, but my true blogging bliss comes when I just make shit up. When I let my mind wander through scenes, characters, and worlds that exist only inside my own head.
So thank you to all of the bloggers who create these wonderful prompts that enable me to express myself with a creativity that I never knew I ever possessed.
If you’ve never tried writing flash fiction you should give it a try. It sure beats playing solitaire.
Written for today’s one-word prompt, “tend.”
This, That, and the Other 
I enjoy the challenges and prompts too, though I still have other stuff to prattle on about. I miss the boat though, as that was a different lifestyle to the norm.
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I learned early in both my professional life and my blogging life that one should never let facts get in the way of a good story. If you want to keep a diary as an artifact for some future blogistorian (ooo, I like that!), that’s fine. But otherwise “entertaining” beats everything, even veracity, when it comes to keeping an audience. Seems it took you a while, but you’re finally realizing that too 😉
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Seems like all good points, whether drawing pictures or writing posts, exercise your imagination. I think this exercise is as good for your health as that sweaty type of exercise!
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[ Smiles ] I still cannot fathom how a person can be bored of their own blog. For the record, your current blog is not boring.
The most important aspect is enjoying the articles that you write.
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It’s easy to be bored with your own blog when you live a boring life and write about it.
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“my true blogging bliss comes when I just make shit up.”
I love that! I haven’t made my way to writing flash fiction yet, unless you count the made-up conversations between my cats. I’ve been sticking with what I know, my feelings and poetry. (I know, poetry tends to make people run, but I find creativity in this form of writing.)
Good for you that you never totally gave up blogging. We all have to find the place that we are interested in and that interests others, while fueling our creative juices. I’m glad you found flash fiction as the creativity that doesn’t bore you.
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you write what you know – but all wrapped up in the net of fiction. It’s great! Anyone who knows too much about me can read one of my stories and say ‘oh, I sort of remember that …’
Stories, even made up ones, come from what we know – it’s just that we didn’t know it until we made it up.
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Yes, I suppose most fiction has at its core, a basis from one’s own personal experiences.
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That’s so many years of blogging! Wow . and still going strong
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With a lot of bloggus interruptus along the way.
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oh please sir…may I use that expression? lol
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Be my guest!
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I remember putting pressure on Sandi to try these prompts. She sure did like them once she got a taste of it. Infact all 4 of us started participating during the same time.
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What happened to her? Is she still blogging?
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Not that I know of. I mailed her, no reply. Like yours it wasn’t her first blog. So maybe she is taking a break or writing from another one.
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She hasn’t posted on “Flip Flops” since early December.
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I am fixated on writing and without the prompts and challenges, I would have quit my blog a long time ago.
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I know. They really exercise the mind and stimulate the imagination, don’t they?
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