Blogging and The Cowboy and the Trophy Gopher

I struggle when it comes to writing blog posts. I know. You’d think someone who can talk non-stop to anyone and anything would be able to put a few words down on a paper once a month. I panic just thinking about crafting an article on subjects the social media experts tell me are important. Among their suggestions are writing about craft, research, my process or my books. Heck, I have no idea what my process is, much less how to teach it to someone else.

I’ve resorted to trolling the websites of people I follow and scanning the newspaper for interesting ideas, but as soon as my mind hears blog post, it goes blank. The only time I have writer’s block is when I try to update my website or post here.

So when I read Kristen Lamb’s Blog http://buff.ly/11gLDJV titled Blogging for Authors, and How A Banana Slicer Saved My Marriage, I didn’t expect to have a light-bulb moment. It was more like a flashbulb moment. I’ve got to admit, I clicked on Kristen’s page to see what the banana slicer was all about, because she’s really funny and I was trying to write this and needed a laugh. Instead I realized I’ve been going about this blogging thing all wrong.

Thanks to Kristen’s eye-opening information, I realized my inspiration needed to come from the things I know and enjoy. Instead of struggling to blog about how to persevere, or setting writing goals, I have a treasure trove of subjects at my fingertips. Cowboys, rodeo, training horses, barrel racing adventures and misadventures with the best and craziest traveling partners on the face of the earth are all subjects I’m not only familiar with but have lived through, thank my lucky stars.  

To quote the question and answer that slapped me upside the head, Kristen asks, “Why are we trying to build a following/fan base for a right-brain product with a left-brain TOOL?”

Her answer: Craft, the industry, our process, and our research are our tools for our art, but they ARE NOT our art. Writers are artists. A writer’s expertise is looking at the world in a unique way mere mortals can’t. THAT is what readers (fans) gravitate to.”

Looking back on my miniscule blogging experience, my most popular blog is The Cowboy and The Trophy Gopher, one of the many true adventures I’ve had since marrying the Bronc Rider, oh so many years ago. Instead of blogging about a subject I’m still learning--writing, I am excited to write about all of the amazing, stupid, exhilarating and downright mindboggling things I done. What better subject could I have to write about than cowboys and cowgirls?