“How I Write” By OM

I hope Jami doesn’t mind, but I will reference her comment for this post. She requested it and I am always willing to write about things I am not good at. I will post here comment first

“I still watch it sometimes, as she is just freakin hilarious! Good blog, btw…I admire how eloquently you can rant and make us all come back for more. I would love to know more about the mental process you go through to create a post of this nature – do you have a post on that topic? They all just read so so effortlessly.”

“I thought so, as they do read like a stream of consciousness. It would still be interesting to read a post on that process though. Perhaps you learn something you hadn’t thought of, and it might be helpful for those of us who overthink/over-craft, which is my issue. I let my ego bully me. It tells me I have nothing interesting to say, or that I can’t say it with any sort of finesse. It’s about fear, or maybe misplaced need for validation instead of that pure need to just write, as you covered in a recent post on blogging and followers. Anyway, I’ll keep a look out!”

I obviously appreciate the compliment and that is also why I am writing this post. People will generally throw small chat at you or give you a passing compliment, we writers are jealous creatures, but when someone asks me a question via comment or email I always try to respond.

I’m not sure I would say it is effortless. There is still effort in that you must take the time to write and keep up a steady pace. Right now I also write still at my host site, http://aopinionatedman.com/ which is where I gained a lot of confidence through posting eight times a day. I just decided I would go right at it, which is in my personality. I think we portray our personalities into our writing and even if we cannot write at a high level we should be encouraged in the fact that there are many different levels of readers out there. There is a reader for everyone. I also like to control the “tone” of my articles and it allows me to “influence” my audience into the perfection of my reality. That is a connection that only comes through writing with heart I think. Heart and not being afraid to be judged because you know what? Fuck people’s judgment.

Topics are easy for me. When I don’t have a topic I write a poem. Then I browse blogs. I look for current issues mainly from CNN or from many of the main websites, but I don’t generally write on issues like that right now. If you notice I have actually moved on into the fiction, inspiration, and humorous types of posts. I also have laid out my game plan on my front page which shows my categories and that helps me to focus on what I write about. Those categories are a mixture of what I do well and what I am learning.

As for how I write effortlessly… that is easy. Two answers for that and I will give the easy one first. I generally have an opinion on most things and have read at least a book or a page on it. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it triggers my mind when I hear a topic and I have read something on it and it generates an easy topic. I then write my posts on my “not so private” journals…

The other answer isn’t as easy to explain. I wrote a post once on http://aopinionatedman.com/ about The Glass House. It was some “Asian Book,” I might have the name wrong, and I have no clue what ethnicity but I think it was Chinese. Basically you placed objects in a mental room and were able to remember long lists with this technique. I loved the idea, because I am a fantasy lover, and decided I would use it to create my own Glass House. In it is different rooms and my study where I have a mental file cabinet. Now here you can choose to believe me or not, it doesn’t really matter does it? I basically have a file cabinet with a paragraph of ideas and I can hold up to 100 or so of these pages. I don’t generally have to or need to, but I have, can, and I do it now. I don’t have photographic memory, I am not a genius, so you can take it for what it is. But it is a mental trick that I have practiced since I was 16 and I am now 32. Maybe there is something to be said about strengthening through practice perhaps. Smarter minds than mine could probably tell you, but that is generally where I pull my articles from.

I don’t hesitate to publish and I only edit once. I will generally go back and relook sometimes for errors. I might even edit an article two days later, maybe that is bad journalism, but I am a blogger and my audience would rather read current than read perfect. I have had “discussions” with other bloggers about this and what they don’t realize is IF they are after traffic they have to drop a little of the perfection. Many of them write beautifully and make perfect articles, but a singular article is limited to the moment. Unless of course it goes viral. But hey, what do I know. I am just another blogger on WordPress.

I hope you don’t mind my referencing your comment Jami and thanks for the mental prompt. I am going to place this article on both websites. One less page in the cabinet.

-Opinionated Man