Friday, January 24, 2020

 Another day in a row I got no drive a'tall, and thus, don't really feel like doing this. I will, though, because I need to keep doing it. For some reason, even just to have something to tell myself I need to do.



 I really wish I could find a focus for this. A direction or a way to sum it up if I were asked. When people do ask, naturally I tell them the web content stuff is the main drag and Journalism is a side gig. Neither of those are really, fully accurate, though. I mean, I'm not putting a whole lot of effort into the web content gig, I'm not going to lie about that.

 And I'm not real sure if I want to call this Journalism, whether it is or not. It's not too much a stretch, I think, as Journalism is a much wider field than someone to give it credit. It's a matter of style and intent. Elucidation is more important than objectivity. You want objectivity, go read some box scores. You want elucidation, well, we'll see what we can do.

 That's sort of the point, that really doesn't sound like a precise way of describing it. I'l like something a bit pithier, though, something with a bit more style. Just another middle-age, middle-class white dude giving his opinion, we don't really need that.

 But a particular viewpoint? Something special brought to the world, that's at least entertaining. I'm so far away from where I need to be on this, I can't even describe what I'm looking for. That speaks to a weakness my writing has always suffered from. I stink out loud at headlines, and the only time I was clever with chapter names was the term paper I wrote about Hank Williams that used his songs to denote the sections. That was clever as hell.

 I also fall down when it comes to names. I have about maybe a dozen names, male or female that I can use and run dry after that. If I don't use my name - and usually "Matthew" and never "Matt" - I use one of those names until I get bored with it. All my male protagonists are shades of Brett Maverick and the females a variation on Marian Ravenwood, anyway.

 I've always been better when I can cast a wide net, even when I'm focusing on one subject. I should've stuck with the non-fiction projects I had but I just never could make a living out of it. Unfortunately, it's all or nothing. When I don't have a specific subject, it's too encompassing. One needs a focus, and despite what everyone else seems to think, I really don't want to write about the South or the Southern Thing or what have you. Someone's got to have something better to add than the Hillbilly Elegy-type books, but I don't want to.

 Anyhow, I think that's what's holding me back and making all of this so frustrating. It's fun, sure, but it'd be nice to be useful and it'd be even nicer to be able make a nickle off it. Plus, it'd put me at ease and give me something to do, because not having anything to do is nice and all, but I'm finding it more difficult to get out of bed. If I'm going to have something that keeps me running, it's going to be something I give a shit about.

 Okay, that's enough of that. Since I've got enough to fill up both spots and there's enough of a delineation, I'm taking the News to the WordPress site. I will put this link to an online petition to get the state of Mississippi to do something about Willie Nash. It's important for so many reasons.