Not Sure What to Write About
I want to write. I’m determined to get writing now, but I don’t know what to write about. I feel I need a subject, a topic, something in current affairs. But I can’t think of anything. I just feel up against a brick wall. I don’t know what to do.
I suppose lots of writers must experience this. We get up in the morning, have breakfast and, sticking to our rule — the same one we’ve read about other writers following — we turn on our computer. We sit down and look at the screen.
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It’s all there, an empty box just waiting for brilliant sentences to be typed. We can see where the title will go, and the text is set to our favourite Arial Black. We’re all ready to start. We push the mouse to click on the first line for our heading. What’s it to be? It needs to be intriguing to make people want to read on. Potato Cultivation in Outer Mongolia isn’t going to hold readers. Nor is Diplomatic Procedures for Constitutional Renewal. It’s got to be pacey and intriguing. Something that would rouse the curiosity of anyone in the street.
Now, what would catch people’s attention? The price of property? Sixteen ways to become a millionaire? How to lose weight in two days?
All very interesting topics but nothing that grabs me. The newspapers seem to hold people with their ‘human interest’ stories but I don’t know any interesting stories about humans. I know a few about the gerbils that I keep but nobody would be bothered about whether my gerbils are going to live longer if they are fed carrots rather than pomegranate seeds.
So what can I write about? Gerbils and middle-income tax avoidance are all I know about, apart from my ageing mother’s favourite television programmes. And I’m certainly not going to write about her!
Maybe I’m just leading a boring life… Maybe I need to get out more. A girlfriend perhaps. I am 45 now. Perhaps I need to start living my life. Yes, that will give me something to write about. Yes, I’ll join that singles club for the over forties. Just what I need.
