I wrote this ages and ages ago. Then I forgot to post it. Oopsie! The real post starts below…
This morning I was obsessed with the “tag line” for this site. A tag line is the abbreviated version of what a website is about. It’s meant to capture its purpose in just a few short words, so that when people do a google search for your site, it comes up. Mine at the moment is “sometimes funny, always interesting.” * It’s a terrible tagline because it doesn’t give the slightest a clue what this site is about. The irony is that the tagline itself, “sometimes funny, always interesting” is not funny. It’s not particularly interesting, either. Plus, I’ll be damned if I know what’s it all about, Alfie. It’s not about anything, actually, as you already know, because, if you’ve read this, you know there is a ridiculous, beautifully wide range of topics. I write anything from angry, anti-Trump rants (if not rants, then at least scoffing and disgust) to weird stuff like “Defrosting the freezer.” That one is actually one of my favorites. I like it because I wrote it early-Covid when I cleverly invented cobweb-toilet paper. I still haven’t gotten a government patent for that critical paper product, for all the reasons I outlined in that entry. “Lymph nodes,” is my second favorite, followed closely by “Good, Cheap Socks.”
The other reason my searching, imagining (even agonizing over), this dang tagline is so silly is because, so far at least, very few people read this blog. Shout out to my Aunt Suzy and to Meg. Thanks, ladies! Further, I really can’t say what it’s about because I don’t even know what I’m going to write on any given day. I wake up, get going, and sit down to write. That’s creativity for you. Or at least that’s creativity for me.
The next part of my writing process (in case that’s interesting) is to “let it cool” for a day, which is what my magnificent high school English teacher called it. So I do. Then I go back the next day, try to re-enter the thinking that sparked it all, and proofread (sort of). All this while trying not to get distracted with little, meaningless details like, um, taglines or which pictures I wanted and for what. It’s all just so fun. Earlier today I got side tracked looking for an image of a “blue goat,” but by the time I found it, I didn’t remember why I wanted it in the first place. Cool name for a band, though. Or a coffee shop.
The downside to this process, the “let it cool” thing, is that by the time it’s the next day a whole bunch of new stuff happened. For instance, last week I was so fired up about Tuesday’s Presidential debate, but I couldn’t write about it until Wednesday (I am not a night time writer.) However, by the time I finished the entry, it was late in the day. Letting it cool meant that it cooled too much, news cycle wise. What was great topical, timely stuff on Wednesday/Thursday, quickly lost its pep when Trump announced his positive Covid test on Thursday night. So much for the debate uproar. News is only news when it’s hot off the press. (And now, unfortunately, because I forgot to post this it is all crazily irrelevant.) Capitol Riots. Trump lost the election. Biden won. Trump got impeached. Again. See what I mean? Damn it, not pressing “Publish,” was a waste of good writing. Or writing, at any rate.
Being creative feeds my soul. Whether I am good at writing or not, I couldn’t say definitively, but it feels good. I like doing it. I suspect I might be a good writer…because Meg and Aunt Suzy say so. Oh, and the lovely Andrew, who helped me finish the content-editing for my book agrees with them. He reads this blog, too, at least sometimes. I should never forget the lovely Andrew, who tells me I have a lot of work to do before I can even try to get my book published. I hate-love Andrew for that very reason. (I just want to be done already, but that’s what editors are for, to call out would-be writers on their denial. He’s right, too. I am not done yet, just like he says.) So, instead of working on my actual “homework” for my book, i.e. finishing it, I do this blogging stuff instead. It’s a lot more fun, as I mentioned earlier. Fun is fun, and who wouldn’t choose fun over work?
Back to fun vs. work…when I was teaching, I got to express my creativity through my teaching (I was a community college instructor, which I know I’ve mentioned.) Creating PowerPoints, fine-tuning lectures, all of that was the fun stuff. I enjoyed getting my creative hit from doing it. Grading papers was not fun, and since I left teaching to run away with the circus, I have not missed grading papers…not one iota. Come to think of it, I haven’t missed any of it. You would think I would miss it, after leaving my 23 year teaching career behind, but I don’t. I don’t miss it at all. Is that weird? Maybe it’s because I can get my creativity on with this blog: words and images, whoot whoot! Now that there’s Covid, I can only imagine what a nightmare teaching public speaking- online, no less!– would be. Phew! Got out of there in the nick of time, baby, nick of time!
This is Nick. 
This is “of time.”
However, back to the topic at hand. Creativity. This morning, I came up with a bunch of taglines for my blog here. “Unexpected topics. Curiously witty” is the one to beat at the moment. I’m not in love with it, though. I sort of want it to evolve into something better, so I’m not going to change it yet, if at all. (It’s kind of a pain in the ass to change, too.) It’s probably still better than “Sometimes funny. Always interesting,” which I’m starting to hate the more I write about this. However, this morning’s quest to develop my new tagline is what led me here, to this particular entry. Creativity. What I realized was that I don’t necessarily have to change the tag line, at least for now, but I thought I could ask both of you what you thought. I mean, all three of you. (Email me, okay? feistyquill@gmail.com).
This morning, while I was day dreaming tag lines over my coffee, for some reason, I thought of “From goats to politics: an idea smorgasbord.” Or the reverse: “A smorgasbord of ideas, from goats to politics.” It’s weird, it’s interesting, and it suits me. Just one catch: I don’t really write about politics that often–or at least not all the time–and I’ve never written about goats. (I just like how it sounds.) Then there are the more conservative types of taglines: “Unexpected topics. Curiously clever.” That one I really liked a lot, probably because my husband thought of it (not me) ages ago, which automatically made it better than any of mine. I was going to go for it at the time, but then I thought, “hmmm, I better do some deeply intense research.” Turns out there is an entire website with the name “curiously clever,” so I scratched it. Instead, I kept “sometimes funny, always interesting” because when I did a search for it, guess whose site came up? Yep, Feisty Quill’s, that’s who. Today, “Goats and politics” isn’t something I found online, either. Annoyingly, though, “sheep, goats, and politics” did come up as a search, and I simply cannot do something so close to mine; I just can’t. Besides, it’s stupid.
Well, team, that’s where I am today. Creative thinking, or thinking creatively, wondering about the best way to sum up something I truly care about, don’t get paid for, and which may or may not mean anything. Fortunately, Mahatma Ghandi once said, “Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.” If it’s good enough for Ghandi, it’s good enough for me. That’s today’s Feisty Quill. Gotta go and feed the goats.
PS– Since I wrote the above, I changed from “sometimes funny, always interesting,” to “sharp wit, sharp tongue, feisty quill” which seems better to me than “sometimes funny, always interesting.” Please chime in with YOUR ideas for a tagline. If I like it better than mine, I’ll publish it. By publish it, I mean post it as my catchy hook for the blog. Email me: feistyquill@gmail.com
PPS–Happy Birthday yesterday to my most faithful reader, Meg! Hope it was wonderful.