Yes, I am suffering from "bloggaphobia." You might be familiar with this kind of dianosis. It's related to "novelphobia" and "essayphobia" as well as "short-storyphobia." Here are the symptoms: chills, fever, accompanied by persistent fear that I have nothing to say and a high degree of conviction that I should be working on something more productive for the world at large than blogging.
Then there are the gremlin questions: Who will I offend? What friends will I turn against me? What relative will delete me from his Christmas list? What enemy will I supply with enough evidence to prove I'm dumb, ditzy, off-base, off-color, off my block? Is what I say worth saying? Will it enlighten, inspire, amuse, provoke, tantalize, bore, freak-out, piss-off? Can I back up what I say? Have I done enough research, thinking, analyzing, weighing the pros and cons of what I want to say? Will I say it clearly, concisely, and with great insight? Have I spellchecked, grammar checked, scored high enough on the Flesch-Kincade grading scale? Will I get flamed, cursed out, condemned, put on somebody's hit list? Yikes!
So what should I do? I'm gonna take two Aleves, drink plenty of liquids, and go to bed; then when I wake up, I'll pretend my only audience is myself and just "GO!"
Actually that works. I haven't told anyone about my blog yet.
Oh, wait.
Well, maybe two people.
Dang.
Another symptom. The inability to keep a secret!!
