Schmotivation

Sometimes it’s a Herculean struggle to come up with a topic to write about. Don’t roll your eyes, have you tried it? Rarely, I’ll have a flash of inspiration or concrete thoughts on a subject to talk about, but mostly I open my column template in InCopy and proceed to stare at the screen with my mouth hanging open for fifteen minutes. Sometimes I’ll put my coworkers on the spot, and walk quickly through the newsroom saying, “WhatshouldIwriteaboutformycolumn...GO!”

but that can backfire, if you work with the smarty-pants people I work with. Or they’ll give me a topic that puts me to sleep or I have to actually research to write about.

I used to keep a list in a special file on my desktop, called “Blog topics” or whatever. I remember doing a search for topics in Google, and some of them were pretty good, but the list dwindled and I used up all the good ones. So here I am, staring at my screen with my mouth hanging open. I look really stupid, maybe I should write about that. Sigh.

Patti is Editor of the Greene County Daily World. She loves to laugh and also loves kitties. She’s kind of weird but has a heart of gold. If you would like to share a story or just make a friend, she can be reached at pattippdanner@gmail.com.