Prompt me a life

[see: Blogger's block]

The link above features in the weblog of blogger.com. Whilst I think these prompts-for-writing are pretty rubbish (an example: What would you do if your jelly sandwich landed jelly-down?) it's worth commenting that blogger.com thinks it should feature something like this. Evidently they recognise that people don't know what to write about in their weblog.

Warwick Blogs also recognises this and has a Prompts page. Plus it also has a Stuck for Ideas to Write About? Try these... button bang in the middle of its front page. The last suggestion in the Prompts was December 2004. Last entry in Stuck for Ideas was April 2005. My guess is that new bloggers are the ones who don't know what to write about. New bloggers think that they have to write exciting and entertaining weblogs. They think that their weblog must be a performance piece. Warwick Blogs has been up and running for a fair while now (start of academic year 2003/2004?). So students have found a use for their weblog... and don't need inspiration from prompt lists? [The same applies to blogger.com. There is a doubling of weblog numbers every 5 months, so blogger.com has an insatiable succession of new bloggers possibly unsure about what exactly they do with this technology?]

The interesting thing, when you read all the suggestions from these 3 sources, is that many of them are superlatives? You answer questions about the best, the first, the worst, the most, when you retire, your baby. They force you to reflect on milestones and memories... and not the daily minutiae. It is the minutiae which endears bloggers to oneanother, and builds community. It is the minutiae which differentiates one blogger Personality from another. it is the minutiae which identifies us as real and unique, and not a collection of check-box answers. I am not alone in despising the phoney personality these prompts extrude from us. Fuck Off.

What is unique about the personal weblog is that you write in an authentic voice about the things you are interested in. Which is normally your daily grind, the people in your life, and your projects/dreams. I'm not convinced that you need to adorn (detract from) your weblog with these accoutrements of phoneyness and same-ness.

[tag: writing]