Dan Harper started me thinking. In a entry in his blog Yet Another Unitarian Universalist he observes "generally speaking, people have a very limited conception of what might go on [in] a blog. Personal confession and strident political commentary seem to be the dominant content in blogs, with a very few people experimenting with other genres of writing. I'm especially interested in "place blogs," where the author of the blog gives you little portraits of where he or she lives. I like writer's blogs, too, especially where the writer posts work in progress." Dan goes on to suggest some interesting projects, most of which seem to be some kind historical fiction. Philocrites picked up on the idea and offered some more suggestions of other possible interesting blogs for some one else to write.
When I first encountered blogs, most seemed to be about technology, and computers, so I thought blogs were about tech things. I can understand Dan generalizing about weblogs based on impressions. Looking at technorati , it seems blogs are all about political partisanship. But we know if we search that among the millions and millions of blogs, there is much variety. Perhaps there are historical fiction blogs somewhere.
But I wonder about the "theology" of wishing someone else would write about some fantasy that comes across our minds. I wish someone would write a poem about ..., I wish someone would write a novel about...,
In another life, I was in the scholarship biz, and professors could convince graduate students to devote years of their lives to writing a dissertation about some fantastic topic the good doctor thought should be written. Sometimes it worked, most of the time such assigned writing killed the soul of the aspirant, and the topic for the professor.
We write what we are called to write. And I believe that which calls a writer to write is deeper, more abiding, and more attentive to our own creative person than anybody else's wish list. Brita Gill-Austern, Professor of Pastoral Theology at Andover Newton once opined "life is too short to do someone else work." Given the economy we can't always make that motto real, but it is good slogan when we are writing for love.
Perhaps we should pray. O precious cosmos, O spirit of life and love, who inspires all of us in many ways and everyday; let someone write that blog that is so needed, and I am so unable to write.
