Generally, I like to read what I've written. But the further back I go, the less I like it.
The stuff is either not as good as I thought it was at the time, or better than what I'm doing now.
Though I think I have mined a pretty solid communication book out of the more than 2,100 Writing Boots blog posts over eight years, the digging was downright discouraging in places, and had diminishing returns every year I went back.
• Reading some posts, I couldn't figure out what the hell I was talking about. Even accounting for forgotten context and the topicality of a daily blog, incomprehensibility is very, very bad. Nobody likes to be befuddled by inside jokes—especially their writer!
• I can be pedantic, and too clever by half. That's probably the most common way I'd pan Writing Boots posts. I find some tiny thing wrong with a bit of communication, and use far more rhetorical armament than necessary to bombard it as a cathedral of hypocrisy or imbecility and blow it to smithereens.
• I should get out more. Or I should blog less. And since I don't know how to blog less, I should get out more, and dig up more genuine stories to share in place of those pedantic opinions.
• What a poser! I would have you believe that I am a simultaneously serious thinker, freewheeling journalist, modern-day adventurer and father of the year. Which I am, of course. So why all the preening?
• I write, "of course" far, far too often.
• I was a dick eight years ago. I think I'm less of a dick today. But I must still be something of a dick. When I started Writing Boots, generating traffic was a serious goal. The only way I knew how to drum it up was by the P.T. Barnum method: "If you want to draw a crowd, start a fight." Especially in those early years, I started fights with everybody—from major PR associations to minor media relations people who happened to send me a stupid news release. Some of those victims had it coming. Others did not. But it's no fun to read your own writing and ask, "Murray, who do you think you are?"
• After 24 years of professional writing, I still haven't figured out what I do best. The curmudgeon act gave me an identity, especially early on. But what people overwhelmingly appreciate is more open-hearted stuff. I've known this for a long time. But I still write mostly the former, and starve readers for the latter. (Perhaps this makes you appreciate it more? Hell if I know.)
• I love myself too much. "He was made much of by his mother," was the old phrase they used to refer to guys like me. It's sort of the worst thing you can say about a person, and again: It's devastating to say to yourself as you read writing that you once thought was sufficiently charming to overcome the pride of its writer. And to realize—and know your dead mother realizes it too—it's not.
And despite all those awful faults, I still I have a loyal readership here at Writing Boots.
To all those who have stuck with me all these years, sincere thanks for your forgiveness. And to all those who haven't—I do understand.
I recall one of the prolific newspaper columnists here in Cleveland saying that during his career he wrote 12 columns a month and on at least two of those 12 occasions he actually had something important to say. It’s hard to be “on” every day, which is one reason I began to write less after my first 5 years in the space. And then there was the ROI thing — but that’s another story for another day.
My blog turns 10 in September. That may be a good time for me look back, as you have, on the entire body of work. I have a funny feeling my conclusions will be pretty much identical to yours — and I’m not nearly as talented a writer as you. However, I am MORE of a dick today than I was 10 years ago, and I don’t plan to apologize for that. It’s kind of a badge of honor to me 🙂
Hope you keep at it, Dave. Have always enjoyed your work.
All of the above are reasons we stick around, David. Because the world has more than enough too slick by half, wanna hire me as a PR consultant, look at me pretending to saying something provocative while being too afraid to say something provocative, I can be a thought leader too type communications blogs. They get boring and they don’t really do anything. (And some of us are probably guilty of writing those blogs…)
Your blog, on the other hand, reads like you’re one of us. Like you’re a guy who simultaneously dreams of what can be but who also just needs to sometimes rant about how things are. I think the fancy pants bloggers call that shit authenticity. So don’t go changing to try to please me.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Sometimes you’re not a dick.
@Bill: Thanks much for the kind words, and don’t worry, I’ll keep at it.
@Rueben: Thank you too, for appreciating my authentic dickishness.
@Jim: The dick store called, and they’re running out of you.