123 - The idea process and guest posts

I have a little notebook, with a space for each day, in which I enter my blogging ideas, and what I write down in this journal ends up being what I talk about on my blogs throughout the week. I spend about an hour or two every weekend, and think about what might be good to discuss on Do you hate it too? and "If you're going through Hell, keep going." I do this to prevent cases of writer's block that may come up if I instead wrote my entries on the spot, in the moment, each day. After a year of not planning ahead for my posts, I really understand how hard it can be sometimes to think of something to say, and what a detrimental effect it can have on the quality of my blog.

Also, there may be some instances when I'm simply too busy or too tired during the week to sit and think of my ideas slowly and carefully. So, in the weekend, I spend time jotting down titles, and then some bullet points underneath each one, as a general guideline I can follow when the date arrives. It makes my writing easier, makes me more efficient and organized, and guarantees better content, because I actually spent time thinking my topics through, doing research if necessary. Plus, on the actual day I come to put these ideas on Blogger, it's kind of like my second chance to self-critique my ideas, and I feel like I've got a little bit of an editing process going on.

If there's one day you go on Do you hate it too? and don't see new content, that means I'm not doing the job I intended, because I ultimately aim to do one entry every day. When I miss one day, it can only mean I was too lazy to blog that day, even if it meant I had an idea written down already. In fact, I already have ideas written down to last me 'til the end of February. I have no excuse to miss any day, so if I do, I'm slacking off, and I apologize for that. Trust me, I hate the lazy pig I am just as much as you do.

As for this blog, my personal blog, I give myself Tuesday and Wednesday off, a bit of a holiday on the busier weekdays. So if I'm missing some days out, it again means I was being slothful, and if I'm blogging on the Tuesday and Wednesday, it means I had some thoughts/feelings I really wanted to publish.

I can't say it's easy to come up with substantial subject matter. In fact, brainstorming interesting stuff is more often difficult and time-consuming than it is fast and smooth. If I didn't go through the process I outlined above, I'd be lucky to even produce just more than five posts in a whole thirty days.

Someone told me that I could ask people to do guest posts on both my blogs, more so on Do you hate it too? as it's the more popular one. As difficult as the idea process can be sometimes, I still don't think I'm going to open that door of opportunity any time soon. These blogs were started by me, all by myself, and it would be like I was giving up a part of me, my own integrity, and in my mind, ownership, as the sole author of all the posts that have been written so far. I'm proud of what I do by myself, and as much as I would like to share the space on Do you hate it too?, I don't think I'm ready to welcome anyone else's work - that of my friends, my family members, my fans, the people I go to school with, and all the bloggers I've come to meet through Blogger.

Some day, maybe, I'll be open to offers, but I'd like to see how much more I can do by myself. I'd like to really be confident in my own style, and have the appropriate mindset for sharing, before seeing if anyone would be interested.

19 - Leave me alone.

What is it about getting other people to understand how we feel that is so important? Why does every single person find themselves, every now and then, in a position where somebody just doesn't understand how we can see things differently to them? What is it about pushing our views on to others that is so satisfying, gratifying, amazingly pleasing?

This is something that I've been thinking about lately because it seems like no matter what I try to do, I can't seem to be able to step in another person's shoes, per se, and make them feel assured because I'm there - to listen, to comprehend and to care. All I can do is try to give them what they want to hear, or show them what they want to see, but do I really know what it's like to be them?

No.

And it's not possible to do so ever. And I feel so damn useless when someone gets disappointed by me, when they think that I'm wrong about the way I see things and when they think that I'm the one that's not accustomed to thinking the way they think, the way it's 'right' to think.

It pains me because I don't go around telling people that they should change the way they are. I don't see why people want me to listen and want my sound advice, if they're not willing to do the same. It seems like no matter how many times I tell people to try and understand me, they go off telling me that I live in my own little world, that I'm self-centered and my views are just so different from the norm as if that's a bad thing. It's my uniqueness that carries me through life. I don't want to be another sheep. How dare somebody tell me that I need to change when it's essentially this character, my judgment and personality, that attracts them to me to ask for advice in the first place.

Why do I always have to be the one that understands you? Why do I always have to be the one that has to change? Is it really so hard for you to accept my quirks and my habits? Is it really so hard for you to understand? Is it really so hard for you to change?

I never ask these questions. You are who you are and you get to be whoever you want to be. Leave me alone. I like living in my own little world. It is what makes me independent, it is what makes me interesting and it is what makes me special.

Leave me the Hell alone.