Okay, I did a throwback here and posted the prompt I am responding to.* One reason is related to the title. My first title for this piece was How Much Time Do You Have, but as the author of the darn thing, I am supposed to pick the poison.
You see, I have two problems here, my life and my ego. Okay, maybe three problems, since my writing skills are involved. Am I truly a writer?
For the record, I am not asking anyone to try to pump up or tear down my ego or self-image. Only time, readership, and my feelings on the matter count in the long run. So, after sorting through the myriad of challenges I’ve faced over the years, the poison I pick today is my talent as a writer.
The challenge for me, which I feel I have at least temporarily overcome, is first-person writing. With a decades-long background of writing for professional journals, academe, and several attempts at fiction, I hate using “I.” And that brings up the next challenge.
Since starting my attempt to develop an online presence reaching more readers and possibly producing income of some sort, my research has been daunting. Except for blogs or websites directly related to marketing products or services, many of the most successful blogs are about the blogger or people who share their stories or testimonies through the blog or website.
They may be travel-related, photography-related, physical challenge-related, spiritualism-related, or political. Still, the writers fill their work with personal stories, accomplishments, thoughts, etc. The pronouns used are predominately me, we, and I.
Between first-person writing and keeping the word count down, #bloganuary is quite a challenge for me. So far, I’m pretty happy with the results, but before I break my arm patting myself on the back, I want to see if I can make the month.
© oneoldcop.com – 2022
#bloganuary #oneoldcop
*Okay, chuckle time, at least from my warped sense of humor. Originally, the first sentence read, Okay, I did a throwback here and posted the prompt to which I am responding. My grammar checker flagged it as wordy and difficult to read, suggesting I change it to Okay, I did a throwback here and posted the prompt I am responding to. The grammar checker then flagged this version because the sentence ended in a preposition.
I also thought “how much time do you have?” First-person is my happy place: it’s easy for me. Third-person, however, is why I mostly steer clear of fiction.