Stop Writing. Now.

“You didn’t read my blogs,” says my friend who has been traveling.

“I did,” I say, “but I didn’t memorize them? Did you read mine?”

“The last one I read was…” she says.

“That was weeks ago. I’ve written a couple since,” I say.

“Oh,” she says. “I haven’t seen those yet.”

“Hmpf,” I think.

So much for more communications being better communications. It has become really difficult to keep up with the blogs, text messages, emails, Facebook announcements, E-vites, voicemails, and Twitter accounts. I’m getting to the point where I wish we’d return to the town crier, to the note being slipped under the door or the US mail.

Thing is, I know a bunch of people who write blogs. Some blogs are better than others, just like some friends are better than others.

So here’s what I have to say.

Stop writing. Right now. Please.

Blogs are strange endeavors. In olden days, they would have been diaries, or newspaper columns, or letters shared with friends. They would have imparted information others might want to read. Aunt Nellie made it through another winter. Uncle Festus didn’t. Mary got married. Steve got divorced from that uppity woman nobody liked and thank heavens they didn’t have children. And yes, she took him to the cleaners. Gertrude had puppies.

Times have changed.

Writing a blog now implies a righteous ego that believes what we have to say is of interest to others. Occasionally, that’s the case. Often, it’s not. Are our experiences really so interesting others want to know about them? Are we good enough writers to describe the mundane and make it special? Some of us are, most of us are not. And many of us are too busy writing our blogs to read anyone else’s.

And so: To the lady who writes about lipstick; to the guy who waxes euphoric about the engine displacement of his Jeep; to the nice couple who tell us stories about their amusing cat; to the gardening woman and her six-pound Burpee Big Boy tomato grown from seed in a half-barrel on her sundeck; to ALL the real estate people; to the discoverer of that wonderful little Serbo-Croatian eatery just an hour away; to the guy who breeds earthworms; to the man who just turned eighty and is learning to play slide guitar; to every single miniature porcelain shoe collector; to the putt-putt golf pro; to the would-be author who has little to say and probably will say it anyway at great length; and, finally, to the novelist who writes about writing his book but never does…

Please, stop writing. I beg of you.

Thank you.  

I’m going to post this now.