Going Blogging

[[switching to first person]] Every night my wife hears the familiar refrain, "I'm going blogging." She never protests or makes a pouty face (thank goodness) as I trudge down the stairs to the laptop in the basement. I write in the basement because it is away from the television and other distractions. Usually, ideas come easily. After all, thirty teams play nearly every night, fielding an average of twelve players each. There are myriads of stories to tell. But sometimes, there just doesn't seem to be anything there. Tonight is one of them. The inside of my head is like a volleyball with half the air missing.

And so I stall. I read the great TaoofStieb. I read Neyer. I noticed that Olney missed a day today, which is unusual. I didn't check out Posnanski as I didn't have enough energy. Read a nice football forecast blog by one of my followers. It was well done but doesn't help a writer looking for ideas for a baseball blog. So if nothing is coming out, why not just take a day off.  GACK! Can't do it.

I'm not sure why I have felt this need to hack away day after day in this spot. I've made some headway on readership and don't want it to slip. That may be part of it. But a lot of it is the doggedness that has marked my life and career. I stick to it. I keep at it. I'm that steady Eddie kind of guy. I haven't missed a day this season and that includes days when I traveled to and from Florida. That includes busy days getting book orders out. That includes lazy days. I'm still driven to the basement to write posts. I've written 480 so far this year and 415 since the baseball season began. I'd hate to think about how many words are involved there.

Writers aren't too different than artists. Some are more prolific than others. And some are more gifted than others. Mr. Posnanski is prolific like Monet and is that caliber an artist too. Other bloggers are more like Grant Wood, who produce a great piece once every so often. The big fear this blogger has is that by producing so often, the quantity will outshine the quality. I don't want to be some Jackson Pollock who can look like a prolific artist by spilling a bunch of paint on the floor. Some see value in that. I don't get it. I don't want this blog to be a bunch of splatter that doesn't seem to look like anything besides a colorful Rorschach Test.

Probably another reason I write every day is to prove a point. I could never understand writers who are getting paid to write about baseball that take days off. Mr. Olney takes a day off here and there, but not many. Others of his peers take all holidays and weekends. Why exactly? If I had a career as a baseball writer, I can't imagine not wanting to write every day, especially if a paycheck was involved. This Labor Day weekend was no exception. I won't name names, but I read a lot of blogs, both professional and amateur. The number of pros who worked over the weekend was minimal. Labor Day weekend?? That would be like mall workers taking days off during Christmas shopping season. Holy cow! This is when things are really cooking! How can you take a three day weekend?

Oh, I hear you. Everyone needs a day off here and there. But the thing is, the average post takes about 30 minutes to write. Some are a little longer if there is a lot of research involved. But that's it. It's not like this is a nine to five proposition. So it's not like three, hour-long sessions on the three days of the Labor Day weekend is a reason for a union to get it's knickers all twisted. I want to prove that a lot of work can happen in a little bit of time and the fans of the Fan can have something to read every day. Let's just hope it's not a colorful Pollock-like Rorschach Test.

See, I just wrote another post. Wasn't that easy?